AI Article Synopsis
- - The study aimed to evaluate the number of medical encounters related to infant maltreatment during a 21-month period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- - Data was collected from a children's hospital in California, analyzing inpatient and emergency department encounters for infants from 2016 to 2021, using models to assess changes over time.
- - Results indicated a significant 64% increase in maltreatment-related medical encounters for infants after the pandemic began, suggesting that COVID-19 may have negatively impacted infant safety.
Article Abstract
Objective: To assess the counts of infant maltreatment-related medical encounters at a large medical system during a 21-month span of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: Retrospective data for this study came from all inpatient and emergency department medical encounters for infants from January 1, 2016, through November 30, 2021, at a single children's hospital system in California. Distributions of medical encounters were tabulated and plotted over time. Interrupted time series models were used to evaluate changes in child maltreatment medical encounters.
Results: Medical encounters for infants with child maltreatment diagnoses increased following the onset of COVID-19. Monthly counts of encounters with indicated maltreatment trended upward following the start of the pandemic. Interrupted time series models showed that the count of maltreatment encounters increased 64% with the onset of COVID-19.
Conclusions: We found an increase in infant maltreatment medical encounters during a 21-month period following the onset of COVID-19. These findings suggest that the pandemic may have adversely affected the safety of infants and ongoing work is needed to understand better the pandemic impacts on child maltreatment.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10284615 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2023.113582 | DOI Listing |
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