The tip of the iceberg for child abuse: the critical roles of the pediatric trauma service and its registry.

Background: The incidence of child abuse is approximately 10% of all children presenting to an emergency department (ED), with a mortality rate less than 1%. By contrast, the characteristics of the subset of abused children presenting to a pediatric trauma service (PTS) is not well defined.

Methods: This study was a retrospective evaluation of prospectively collected information from an urban Level I pediatric trauma registry from 1990 to 2002 (n = 11,919).