Hospital-based child protection teams that care for parents who abuse or neglect their children recognize the need for multidisciplinary collaborative practice involving perinatal care and mental health professionals: a questionnaire survey conducted in Japan

Abstract

Background

Child abuse and/or neglect is a serious issue, and in many cases, parents are the perpetrators. Hospital-based child protection teams (CPTs) play pivotal roles in the management of not only abused and/or neglected children but also of their parents; this is generally conducted through multidisciplinary practice. The aim of this study is to survey hospital-based CPT members to determine the professions they perceive to be most applicable to participation in CPTs.

Participants and methods

The participants were members of CPTs affiliated with hospitals that had pediatric emergency departments and which were located in Chiba Prefecture; specifically, 114 CPT members from 23 hospitals responded to this survey. The two main questionnaire items concerned are as follows: 1) each respondent’s evaluation of conducting assessments, providing support, and implementing multidisciplinary collaborative practice in the treatment of abusive and negligent parents, and 2) each CPT member’s opinion on the professions that are most important for CPT activities. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to explore the factor structure of the data, and a correlation analysis was performed using the result obtained.

Results

The EFA returned two factors: multidisciplinary collaborative practice (α = 0.84) and assessment and support (α = 0.89). A correlational analysis showed that multidisciplinary collaborative practice had a positive correlation for obstetricians (r = 0.315, p = 0.001), neonatologists (r = 0.261, p = 0.007), midwives (r = 0.248, p = 0.011), and psychiatrists (r = 0.194, p = 0.048); however, assessment and support was only significantly correlated with midwives (r = 0.208, p = 0.039).

Conclusion

This study showed that hospital-based CPT members highly evaluate multidisciplinary collaborative practice for the management of abusive and/or negligent parents, and they believe that, in addition to pediatric physicians and nurses, perinatal care and mental health professionals are the most important participants in advanced CPT activities.

Keywords:

• child abuse and neglect
• abusive parents
• child protection services
• multidisciplinary practice
• maltreatment of children

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.jp) for English language editing. We declare that this work was financially supported by Chiba University Psychiatry Doumonkai (Chiba, Japan) and Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine (Chiba, Japan). We thank all medical staff for their participation in this study. We further thank the clinical research nurses (Kaoru Ikeda, Chisako Fujishiro, and Chiharu Fujita), the research assistant (Komako Ito), and the members of CPT in Chiba University Hospital (Kyoko Tanabe, Ryoko Igarashi, Saki Eshima, and Mizuho Kawasaki) for supporting this work at Chiba University Hospital.

Author contributions

Study concept and design: AO, TH. Making contents of questionnaire: AO, TH, MT, AM, JO, ME, MS, NS. Analysis and interpretation of data: AO, TH, MT. Drafting of manuscript: AO, TH, MT. Study supervision: MS, MI. All authors contributed toward data analysis, drafting and revising the paper and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

Dr. Hashimoto reported personal fees from research support of a clinical trial that the bracket global company manages. Dr. Iyo received consultant fees from Janssen, Eli Lilly, Otsuka, and Meiji Seika Pharma and reports honoraria from Janssen, Eli Lilly, Otsuka, Meiji Seika Pharma, Astellas, Dainippon Sumitomo, Ono, Mochida, MSD, Eisai, Daiichi-Sankyo, Novartis, Teijin, Shionogi, Hisamitsu, and Asahi Kasei. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.