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The effectiveness of an abuse assessment protocol in public health prenatal clinics.

W H Wiist and J McFarlane

Houston Department of Health and Human Services, Tex., USA.

OBJECTIVES: This study evaluated whether incorporation of an abuse assessment protocol into the routine procedures of the prenatal clinics of a large urban public health department led to increased referral for and assessment, identification, and documentation of abuse. METHODS: Evaluation was conducted at 3 matched prenatal clinics serving a total of 12,000 maternity patients per year. Two clinics used the abuse protocol and 1 did not. An audit was performed at the clinics on a randomly selected sample of 540 maternity patient charts for the 15 months before the protocol was initiated and of 540 records for the 15 months after the protocol was introduced. Ninety-six percent of the patients represented in the sample were Latina. RESULTS: At the clinics using the protocol, abuse assessment increased from 0 to 88%. Detection of abuse increased from 0.8% to 7%. There were no changes at the comparison clinic. CONCLUSIONS: Incorporation of an abuse assessment protocol into the routine procedures of public health department prenatal clinics increases the assessment, identification, and documentation of and referral for abuse among pregnant women. An abuse protocol should be a routine part of maternity care.

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