Dataset Information

Educating early childhood care and education providers to improve knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment: A randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: Early childhood care and education providers (CCPs) work with over 7 million young children. These children are vulnerable to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. However, CCPs make less than 1% of all reports of suspected child abuse and neglect that are made to child protective services. CCPs are therefore an untapped resource in the public health response to child maltreatment. However, their knowledge and attitudes about duties to report child maltreatment are poorly understood. Moreover, no rigorous research has tested whether their knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment can be improved. These gaps in knowledge are important because knowledge of the duty and positive attitudes towards it produce more effective reporting, and little evidence exists about how to enhance cognitive and affective attributes. Using the CONSORT approach, we report a single-blind test-retest randomized controlled trial evaluating iLook Out for Child Abuse, a customized online educational intervention for CCPs to increase knowledge and attitudes towards the reporting duty. 762 participants were randomized with results analyzed for 741 participants (372 in the intervention group; 369 in the control). Knowledge of the reporting duty increased in the intervention group from 13.54 to 16.19 out of 21 (2.65 increase, 95% CI: (2.37, 2.93); large effect size 0.95, p < 0.001); the control group remained stable, moving from 13.54 to 13.59 (0.05 increase, 95% CI: (-0.12, 0.22); negligible effect size 0.03, p = 0.684). Attitudes were enhanced on all 13 items for the intervention group, remaining stable in the control, with significant differences between groups on all items (p < 0.05). Gains were largely sustained at four month follow-up. Findings support education for CCPs and other professions. Future research should also explore effects of education on reporting behavior.US National Institutes of Health NCT02225301.

SUBMITTER: Mathews B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5438118 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Educating early childhood care and education providers to improve knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment: A randomized controlled trial.

Mathews Ben B Yang Chengwu C Lehman Erik B EB Mincemoyer Claudia C Verdiglione Nicole N Levi Benjamin H BH

PloS one 20170519 5

Early childhood care and education providers (CCPs) work with over 7 million young children. These children are vulnerable to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. However, CCPs make less than 1% of all reports of suspected child abuse and neglect that are made to child protective services. CCPs are therefore an untapped resource in the public health response to child maltreatment. However, their knowledge and attitudes about duties to report child maltreatment are poorly understood ...[more]

PMID: 28542285

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Project description:In recent years, real-world studies (RWS) are gaining increasing interests, because they can generate more realistic and generalizable results than randomized controlled clinical trials (RCT). In 2017, we published a RCT in 741 early childhood care and education providers (CCPs). It is the Phase I of our iLookOut for Child Abuse project (iLookOut), an online, interactive learning module about reporting suspected child maltreatment. That study demonstrated that in a RCT setting, the iLookOut is efficient at improving CCPs' knowledge of and attitudes towards child maltreatment reporting. However, the generalizability of that RCT's results in a RWS setting remains unknown. To address this question, we design and conduct this large RWS in 11,065 CCPs, which is the Phase II of the iLookOut. We hypothesize replication of the earlier RCT findings, i.e., the iLookOut can improve CCPs' knowledge of and attitudes toward child maltreatment reporting in a real world setting. In addition, this RWS also explores whether demographic factors affect CCPs' performance. Results of this RWS confirmed the generalizability of the previous RCT's results in a real world setting. It yielded similar effect sizes for knowledge and attitudes as were found in the earlier RCT. Cohen's d for knowledge improvement was 0.95 in that RCT, 0.96 in this RWS; Cohen's d for attitude improvement was 0.98 in that RCT, 0.80 in this RWS. Also, we found several significant differences in knowledge and attitude improvement with regard to age, race, education, and employment status. In conclusion, iLookOut improves knowledge and attitudes of CCPs about child maltreatment prevention and reporting in a real-world setting. The generalizability of the initial RCT findings to this RWS provides strong evidence that the iLookout will be effective in other real world settings. It can be a useful model for other interventions aimed at preventing child maltreatment. Clinical trial registration for the original RCT: NCT02225301 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier).

Project description:IntroductionChildren in foster care are at higher risk of health problems. These risks present challenges to achieving permanency, safety, and well-being. Despite efforts to improve the systems serving children in foster care, gaps remain in achieving timely and quality health services. Based on stakeholder reports that health care provider knowledge about child welfare systems is a barrier to care, the Fostering Health Partnerships project conducted 2-session learning collaborative events across Michigan. The project team hypothesized that participants would increase knowledge of child welfare policy and that physician participants would identify and commit to practice change to improve health care services to children in foster care.MethodsLearning collaborative events included an in-person session followed by a live webinar session. Participants included child welfare professionals, physicians, and other health care representatives. Participants completed surveys assessing knowledge about child welfare health policy. Physician participants completed a post-event interview. The investigators used pre- and post-intervention survey design and qualitative evaluation of physician interview data to assess the impact of the learning collaborative events on knowledge and practice.ResultsA total of 781 individuals attended the initial session and 383 attended the second session of 36 events for 80 counties in Michigan. 247 individuals completed pre- and post-event surveys and 7 physicians completed interviews after the events. Survey data showed that event participants demonstrated increased knowledge of child welfare policy related to health (P < .001). Interviewed physicians reported making practice changes to improve health care services and indicated that the events were valuable though time intensive.ConclusionAn abbreviated learning collaborative process is an effective tool to improve knowledge and drive practice change. Future efforts will build on this project to improve access, coordination, and quality health services for children in foster care.

Project description:ObjectiveTo systematically search for research about the effectiveness of mandatory reporting of child maltreatment and to synthesise qualitative research that explores mandated reporters' (MRs) experiences with reporting.DesignAs no studies assessing the effectiveness of mandatory reporting were retrieved from our systematic search, we conducted a meta-synthesis of retrieved qualitative research. Searches in Medline (Ovid), Embase, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Sociological Abstracts, Education Resources Information Center, Criminal Justice Abstracts and Cochrane Library yielded over 6000 citations, which were deduplicated and then screened by two independent reviewers. English-language, primary qualitative studies that investigated MRs' experiences with reporting of child maltreatment were included. Critical appraisal involved a modified checklist from the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme and qualitative meta-synthesis was used to combine results from the primary studies.SettingAll healthcare and social-service settings implicated by mandatory reporting laws were included. Included studies crossed nine high-income countries (USA, Australia, Sweden, Taiwan, Canada, Norway, Finland, Israel and Cyprus) and three middle-income countries (South Africa, Brazil and El Salvador).ParticipantsThe studies represent the views of 1088 MRs.OutcomesFactors that influence MRs' decision to report and MRs' views towards and experiences with mandatory reporting of child maltreatment.ResultsForty-four articles reporting 42 studies were included. Findings indicate that MRs struggle to identify and respond to less overt forms of child maltreatment. While some articles (14%) described positive experiences MRs had with the reporting process, negative experiences were reported in 73% of articles and included accounts of harm to therapeutic relationships and child death following removal from their family of origin.ConclusionsThe findings of this meta-synthesis suggest that there are many potentially harmful experiences associated with mandatory reporting and that research on the effectiveness of this process is urgently needed.

Dataset Information

Educating early childhood care and education providers to improve knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment: A randomized controlled trial.

Publications

Educating early childhood care and education providers to improve knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment: A randomized controlled trial.

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