| Canadian hospitals lack assessment instruments for making decisions about child maltreatment. The purpose of the present study was to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of a psychosocial protocol that was developed for a hospital Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team to assist in the assessment and reporting of suspected child maltreatment cases. The psychosocial protocol included a referral form, an injury assessment, and a parent-child relational interview. The central finding of this study was that several demographic variables, as well as the Psychosocial Injury Assessment (PIA) and the Empirically-Based Clinical Decision-Making Interview (ECDMI) constructs were related to case outcome (referral to CAS). In terms of decision sensitivity and specificity, using set clinical cut-offs on the PIA and ECDMI, most led to classifications that matched those of expert raters. Furthermore, a validity check of the ECDMI found that risk ratings could differentiate the high-risk SCAN sample from a low-risk community sample. Other findings of the study were that characteristics of cases reviewed for maltreatment in this hospital setting differed from what is typically found in the child maltreatment literature. Most notably, children tended to be under the age of two with married, well-educated parents. Overall, this study supports the beginnings of a reliable and valid psychosocial protocol to improve decision-making in hospital settings. |
