Child maltreatment is a serious social problem leading every year to the es timated deaths of approximately 155,000 children worldwide. Many more suffer lifelong consequences. It is notoriously... Show moreChild maltreatment is a serious social problem leading every year to the es timated deaths of approximately 155,000 children worldwide. Many more suffer lifelong consequences. It is notoriously difficult to detect vic tims of child maltreatment, despite its frequent occurrence. This becomes apparent if one compares the numbers of reported victims of child maltreatment with the known prevalence numbers. In the United States of America (USA), a total of 676,569 children are yearly reported to the Child Protecive Services (CPS) while prevalence studies indicate that an estimated 2,905,800 (or 39.5 per 1,000) children were victims of maltreatment in the study year 2005/2006. In the Netherlands, 19.254 children are yearly reported to the Reporting Center for Child Abuse and Neglect (RCCAN), while an estimated 119,000 (34 per 1,000) children are victims of child abuse every year. This disserta tion describes the development and validation of a protocol that seeks to contribute to reducing the gap between the prevalence and detec tion of child maltreatment. The __Hague protocol__, as this protocol was named, introduces parental characteris as a critical piece of informa tion that considerably increases the detec tion of child maltreatment at hospital emergency departments. Show less
