Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services
Aim: Establish the incidence, burden and characteristics of paediatric safeguarding concerns in rural Australian ED practice. Methods: Retrospective cohort study of burns, injury and poisoning presentations across 16 months involving 1472 paediatric cases. Results: 5% of presentations had confir...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2022
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/88916 |
| _version_ | 1848765112508219392 |
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| author | Enzor, Lesley Van Bockxmeer, John Makate, Marshall |
| author_facet | Enzor, Lesley Van Bockxmeer, John Makate, Marshall |
| author_sort | Enzor, Lesley |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Aim: Establish the incidence, burden and characteristics of paediatric safeguarding concerns in rural Australian ED practice.
Methods: Retrospective cohort study of burns, injury and poisoning presentations across 16 months involving 1472 paediatric cases.
Results: 5% of presentations had confirmed safeguarding concern. These were highest during the 2200-0600 staffing period. Mean age was 7.7 years, 43.8% were female. Multivariable regression models show age 2-6 years: (OR,3.27; 95%CI, 1.35-7.93); delayed presentation: (OR,2.3; 95% CI,1.47-3.59); and police accompaniment: (OR,9.46; 95% CI, 2.61-34.26) are associated with increased safeguarding concerns. 91.8% of concerns related to injuries, largely musculoskeletal, wounds and head injuries. Thermal burns were more common that chemical and electrical.
Conclusion: Children aged 2-6 are at higher risk for harm than previously recognised and children aged 0-2 years were over-represented in staff-suspected concerns. Those accompanied by police had significant association with confirmed safeguarding concerns which were under-suspected by staff or assumed to have been already reported. In rural practice, ‘unreasonable delay’ was found to be a better measure of concern than a discrete time value. Transient family arrangements, unsecured accommodation, geographical isolation, cultural safety and unique home
environments must be taken into when completing injury assessments.
For regional health services to successfully identify children at risk, interagency collaboration, staff education and local patterns of concern should be targeted. Rostering changes should increase after-hours assessment capacity by specialty paediatric staff. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:30:04Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-88916 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:30:04Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Wiley-Blackwell |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-889162023-03-22T06:02:14Z Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services Enzor, Lesley Van Bockxmeer, John Makate, Marshall Aim: Establish the incidence, burden and characteristics of paediatric safeguarding concerns in rural Australian ED practice. Methods: Retrospective cohort study of burns, injury and poisoning presentations across 16 months involving 1472 paediatric cases. Results: 5% of presentations had confirmed safeguarding concern. These were highest during the 2200-0600 staffing period. Mean age was 7.7 years, 43.8% were female. Multivariable regression models show age 2-6 years: (OR,3.27; 95%CI, 1.35-7.93); delayed presentation: (OR,2.3; 95% CI,1.47-3.59); and police accompaniment: (OR,9.46; 95% CI, 2.61-34.26) are associated with increased safeguarding concerns. 91.8% of concerns related to injuries, largely musculoskeletal, wounds and head injuries. Thermal burns were more common that chemical and electrical. Conclusion: Children aged 2-6 are at higher risk for harm than previously recognised and children aged 0-2 years were over-represented in staff-suspected concerns. Those accompanied by police had significant association with confirmed safeguarding concerns which were under-suspected by staff or assumed to have been already reported. In rural practice, ‘unreasonable delay’ was found to be a better measure of concern than a discrete time value. Transient family arrangements, unsecured accommodation, geographical isolation, cultural safety and unique home environments must be taken into when completing injury assessments. For regional health services to successfully identify children at risk, interagency collaboration, staff education and local patterns of concern should be targeted. Rostering changes should increase after-hours assessment capacity by specialty paediatric staff. 2022 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/88916 10.1111/jpc.16216 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Wiley-Blackwell fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Enzor, Lesley Van Bockxmeer, John Makate, Marshall Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services |
| title | Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services |
| title_full | Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services |
| title_fullStr | Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services |
| title_full_unstemmed | Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services |
| title_short | Assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural Australian health services |
| title_sort | assessing paediatric safeguarding in rural australian health services |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/88916 |