[Original Article]Early involvement of the child protection team in a tertiary care hospital for detection of child maltreatment

[ABSTRACT]【Background】This study reviewed the status of child protection teams (CPTs) in Japan and surveyed the characteristics and risks faced by abused children and their families. We examined the actual situation of support and intervention on the prevention of child maltreatment.【Methods】This is a retrospective investigation based on the medical records of all children under 18 who received an intervention from the hospital-based CPT at Chiba University Hospital between April 2016-March 2018. We evaluated the characteristics of the children and their families and compared them between a group suspected of maltreatment and another (non-maltreatment) group. In the group suspected of maltreatment, we evaluated the relationship between each type of maltreatment and family history of government and welfare service interventions.【Results】In all, 150 cases (N = 150) were included in the analysis. There were many infant cases. The non-maltreatment group tended to have higher children’s age, NICU hospitalization history rate, unmarried status of parents, medical insurance non-participation rate, and living on welfare rate than the suspected maltreatment group. In infancy, there was more physical abuse if there was no history of administrative or welfare service intervention, but there was considerable neglect even with interventions.【Conclusions】Families with a high risk of abuse must receive intervention at the earliest, in the perinatal or the infant period, and it is necessary to tailor the content of the intervention to each family.