Citation

Baker AJL, Brassard MR. Child Abuse Negl. 2019; 96: e104102.

Affiliation

Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, United States.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104102

PMID

31386997

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Psychological maltreatment (PM) is equivalent in harm to other forms of child maltreatment and yet it is not included in all US State child abuse statutes and past research using the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS, 1998, 2007, 2008) identified 300-480-fold differences in substantiated cases across US States. This variation is inconsistent with the significance of the problem and the availability of reliable operational definitions. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: US State statutes were coded and compared with reported rates of four different forms of child maltreatment in the 2014 and 1998 NCANDS data sets.

METHODS: Data were extracted from NCCANDS and State statutes were coded independently by the authors (kappa = .96).

RESULTS: For 2014, the difference in reported rates of PM between the State with the lowest rate and the State with the highest rate was 523-fold which was much higher than for physical (30-fold) and sexual abuse (20-fold) but not neglect (524-fold). Statutes still use the term "mental injury" from the original Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (Child Abuse Prevention & Treatment Act, 1974) and two thirds did not define it. Reported rates of PM in NCANDS were not correlated with whether PM was defined in the statute but when a harm standard was present, reported rates were statistically lower. Almost 70% of statutes mentioned a current trend (e.g., sexual/human trafficking) demonstrating a willingness by States to amend statutes.

CONCLUSIONS: A common, reliable definition of PM (and other forms of maltreatment) in CAPTA, NCANDS, and US State statutes is necessary for the US to have a surveillance system that allows for the assessment of the effects of policies on reported rates of all forms of maltreatment.

Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Child maltreatment definitions; Emotional abuse; Emotional neglect; Psychological maltreatment; State statutes