Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31899328›Full record

ArticleAcademic pediatrics

A Novel Scale to Communicate Perceived Likelihood of Child Sexual Abuse.

John D Melville, Daniel M Lindberg

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Academic pediatrics. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact, top 74% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed, 0 citations in OpenAlex.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

John D MelvilleDivision of Child Abuse Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina (JD Melville), Charleston, SC. Electronic address: melvillj@musc.edu.
Daniel M LindbergDepartment of Emergency Medicine, The Kempe Center for the Prevention & Treatment of Child Abuse & Neglect, University of Colorado School of Medicine (DM Lindberg), Aurora, Colo.
Medical University of South Carolina · USUniversity of Colorado Denver · US

Funding

Using Clinical Design Support to Improve Child Physical Abuse TestingK23HD083559 · NICHD · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · PI LINDBERG, DANIEL M · 2016 to 2019
$625k
NICHD NIH HHS K23 HD083559
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND

objectiveChild abuse pediatricians (CAPs) are often asked to determine the likelihood that a particular child has been sexually abused. These determinations affect medical and legal interventions, and are important for multisite research. No widely accepted scale is available to communicate perceived sexual abuse likelihood. In this study, we measure intra- and inter-rater reliability of a 5-point scale to communicate child sexual abuse likelihood.

methodsWe developed a 5-point scale of perceived likelihood of child sexual abuse with example cases and medical-legal language for each risk category. We then surveyed CAPs who regularly perform sexual abuse evaluations using the abstracted facts of 15 actual cases with concern for sexual abuse. A subset of participants rated the same vignettes again, 1 month later.

resultsOf 512 invited participants, 240 (46.7%) responded, with 145 (28.3%) indicating that they regularly perform sexual abuse evaluations, 116 initially completing all 15 vignettes, and 36 completing repeat ratings at least 1 month later. The scale showed consistent stepwise increase in mean perceived likelihood of abuse and intention to report for each increase in scale rating. Inter-rater agreement was substantial (Fleiss' weighted kappa 0.64) and test-retest reliability among 36 participants was almost perfect (Cohen's kappa = 0.81).

conclusionsWe introduce a scale of perceived sexual abuse likelihood that appears to reflect CAPs' perceptions and intention to report. This scale may be a reasonable metric for use in multicenter studies. CAPs demonstrated substantial inter- and intrarater reliability when evaluating sexual abuse likelihood in case vignettes. While this scale may improve communication of sexual abuse likelihood among experts, its examples should not be used as a legal standard or a clinical criterion for sexual abuse diagnosis.

Indexed as

Child AbuseChild Abuse, SexualChildHumansObserver VariationPediatriciansReproducibility of Resultsagreementlikelihoodsexual abuse

Identifiers

PMID31899328
PMCPMC7200293
OpenAlexW2997071525

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.