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Screening for Maternal Experiences of Physical Abuse During ChildhoodDepartment of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of Washington School of Medicine
Department of Public Health, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington
Because a parental history of abuse during childhood is a documented risk factor for child abuse, pediatricians have been urged to assess parents' childhood discipline experiences. A brief set of questions was developed to detect a maternal history of childhood physical abuse that could be incorporated into a comprehensive psychosocial screening questionnaire. A criterion-based definition was used as the measure for physical abuse. In phase I, four screening questions were developed in a cross-sectional survey of 284 middle-class women attending a family medicine clinic, of whom 32% met the criteria definition for physical abuse. In phase II, the screening questions were tested in 428 mothers seen in Salt Lake City- and Seattle-area pediatric clinics. The four screening questions had a sensitivity of > 90%, a specificity of > 85%, a positive predictive value of >75%, and a negative predictive value of
Clinical Pediatrics, Vol. 33, No. 6,
333-339 (1994) This article has been cited by other articles:
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90% — as compared with the criteria-based definition in both pediatric settings. These four screening questions compared favorably to a criteria-based definition of physical abuse during childhood and may be useful additions to psychosocial questionnaires. 
