Eight-Year Period Prevalence of Physical Abuse in Hospitalised Infants and Corresponding In-hospital Mortality in France

Child abuse is a global public health issue; however, there is a severe lack of reliable epidemiological data. This study estimates the period prevalence of child physical abuse requiring hospitalisation and the corresponding in-hospital mortality, using the French medico-administrative database. We included all children less than one year old who were hospitalised from 2007 to 2014. Three groups were defined: group one - physically abused children; group two - possible physically abused children; and group three - all other hospitalised children. Estimation of the national eight-year period prevalence of physical abuse among hospitalised children was equivalent to the number of children included in group one or groups one and two divided by the number of children aged less than one year in France from 2007 to 2014. Infants hospitalised for physical abuse represent between 0.04 per cent (group 1) and 0.10 per cent (groups 1 and 2) of all children less than one year old in France, which corresponds to 0.28 per cent (group 1) and 0.74 per cent (groups 1 and 2) of all hospitalised children (less than one year old). Hospital mortality at first admission ranged from 2.93 per cent (group 1) to 2.36 per cent (groups 1 and 2). To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide an estimation of the period prevalence of child physical abuse requiring hospitalisation in France and the corresponding in-hospital mortality. More effective prevention strategies are needed to help health professionals identify and protect at-risk children. (c) 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages The average hospital stay for physically abused children was much longer than for other children. The in-hospital mortality rate is higher for physically abused children than for those with other trauma-related cases. Identifying and coding child abuse accurately is an important step towards understanding the extent of this public health problem.