Prevalence of abuse among young children with femur fractures: a systematic review

BMC Pediatrics

Table 2 Study methodology rating scales; abuse determination methodology rating scale*

1	Abuse confirmed at case conference or family, civil, or criminal court proceedings; admitted by perpetrator; or witnessed abuse
2	Abuse confirmed by stated criteria including multidisciplinary assessment
3a	Abuse defined using specific stated case based criteria
3b	Abuse including cases of likely or probable abuse defined by specific stated case based criteria
4	Abuse stated but no supporting detail given as to how a determination of abuse was made^#
5	Suspected abuse

*Adapted from a scale with 5 levels developed by Maguire et al. (2005). [16] For studies using specific stated case based criteria to make a determination of abuse (rating 3), we distinguished studies that included only definite abuse cases (3a) from those that also included likely or probable abuse cases (3b). Assessment by multidisciplinary hospital-based child protection team as part of routine clinical care did not qualify as multidisciplinary assessment. ^#Level 4 includes studies relying on ICD-9 and E-codes for identifying abuse cases in administrative data sets and studies relying on diagnoses of abuse made by clinical teams without providing specific criteria by which these diagnoses were made.

ISSN: 1471-2431