Diagnosing and responding to serious child abuse

BMJ 1998;317:484-485 ( 22 August )

Editorials

Diagnosing and responding to serious child abuse

Confronting deceit and denial is vital if children are to be protected

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Publishing recently in Pediatrics, Southall et al described their experience of using covert video recordings to diagnoselife threatening abuse.¹ Of 39 children (median age 9 months)referred to two UK hospitals for investigation of suspicion ofinduced illness, including 36 with apparent life threatening events,the authors filmed evidence of abuse in 33. This included suffocationin 30, poisoning in two, and the breaking of an arm. The transcriptsof the recordings make distressing, yet essential, reading. Riskof abuse extended to other children within these families: 12out of 41 siblings had died suddenly and unexpectedly (suffocationwas subsequently admitted for 8, and reinvestigation of anotherrevealed salt poisoning), and abuse was documented in a further15.

Southall et al have revealed the grim world which has been intermittently explored over the past 100 or so years.^2-4 Now,however, the filmed evidence concretely exposes what was previouslyavailable only to professional imagination. These children were. . . [Full text of this article]

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Diagnosing serious child abuse: Brian Morgan, David P H Jones, Margaret Lynch, and Neil G Snowise
BMJ 1999 318: 462. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Southall, D P, Samuels, M P, Golden, M H (2003). Classification of child abuse by motive and degree rather than type of injury. Arch. Dis. Child. 88: 101-104 [Abstract] [Full text]
SHABDE, N., CRAFT, A. W (1999). Covert video surveillance: an important investigative tool or a breach of trust?. Arch. Dis. Child. 81: 291-294 [Full text]
Morgan, B., Jones, D. P H, Lynch, M., Snowise, N. G (1999). Diagnosing serious child abuse. BMJ 318: 462-462 [Full text]