Parental physical disease severity and severe documented physical child abuse: a prospective cohort study

Troels Græsholt-Knudsen*, Charlotte Ulrikka Rask, Steven Lucas, Carsten Obel, Bodil Hammer Bech

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaperJournal articleResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Successful prevention of physical child abuse is dependent on improvements in risk assessment. The risk of abuse is assumed to increase when family stressors overcome resources. Severe physical disease can increase stress, and parental physical disease has been studied as a risk factor for physical child abuse, but with heterogeneous definitions. This study evaluated the relation between parental physical disease severity and severe documented physical child abuse. Models were based on data on children aged 0–17 years in Denmark between 1997 and 2018, and their parents. Severe documented physical child abuse was modeled as violence against a child registered by either health authorities in treatment or mortality registries, or police authorities in cases confirmed by the courts. Parental physical disease severity was modeled as the sum of Charlson Comorbidity Index scores for the child’s parents. The causal connection was examined in two model types: a survival model comparing exposed with non-exposed children, adjusted for covariates at baseline, and a G-model, taking time-varying covariates, including income and parental psychiatric disease into account. Neither model showed an association between parental physical disease severity and severe documented physical child abuse, with RR 0.99 and 95% CI (0.93–1.05) for the survival model and RR 1.08 for the G-model (CI not calculated). Conclusion: In the model studied, parental physical disease severity was not a risk factor for severe documented physical child abuse. Individual categories of physical disease remain to be examined. Trial registration: The study was pre-registered on Open Science Framework, https://osf.io/fh2sr. (Table presented.)

Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Journal of Pediatrics
Volume183
Issue1
Pages (from-to)357-369
Number of pages13
ISSN0340-6199
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2024

Keywords

  • child
  • maltreatment
  • physical child abuse
  • parental health
  • risk factor
  • causal
  • Causal
  • Risk factor
  • Parental health
  • Maltreatment
  • Child
  • Physical child abuse
  • Child Abuse/diagnosis
  • Parents/psychology
  • Prospective Studies
  • Humans
  • Risk Factors
  • Mental Disorders

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