ELECTRICA
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development and proof of concept of an ELEctronic tool for Clinicians, Teachers and Researchers In Child Abuse: ELECTRICA
IRAS ID
283120
Contact name
Amaka C Offiah
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Children`s Hospital NHSFT
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 6 months, 2 days
Research summary
Child abuse is a serious, worldwide health issue. Every year, approximately 4-16% of children are physically abused and 1 in 10 is neglected or psychologically maltreated. The diagnosis is a difficult one to reach (up to 64% of physically abused children attending Emergency Departments are missed) and is largely one of exclusion. Factors for the doctor to consider include age of the child, mechanism of injury, nature and number of identified injuries, presence of underlying disease and age of fracture. Each case will have unique features and there is no single test to confirm or exclude the diagnosis, yet the current evidence base for assessing the probability that an injury is abusive is limited.
Our long-term, overarching goal is to assist doctors in identifying fractures caused by child abuse. This will be achieved by developing a clinical decision tool (a computer program using a large evidence base and statistical algorithms), to be made available to UK paediatric hospitals (Emergency and Radiology Departments). The tool will be simple and intuitive to use. A doctor examining a young child with a fracture will enter relevant information (e.g. details of the fracture) into the computer programme to obtain the probability that the fracture was caused by abuse. The tool will alert the doctor, perhaps inexperienced and working in a district general hospital, to actions that should explicitly be considered.
The current grant will allow the development and initial proof of concept of the software tool at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Future grants will allow us to collect a large volume of information from multiple collaborating centres, to improve the accuracy of the tool. We anticipate that it will ultimately be used for epidemiological research, to assist with clinical management and for teaching in relation to accidental and inflicted injury in infants and young children.REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/WM/0051
Date of REC Opinion
22 Jul 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion