Publication date: Mar 24, 2025
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified psychosocial stressors, potentially contributing to increased rates of child abuse. This study aimed to compare trends in child abuse/traumatic brain injury (TBI) admissions and socioeconomic status before and after the pandemic. A 7-year retrospective study was conducted at a Level-1 Pediatric Trauma Center. TBI cases were identified using ICD-10 codes based on the modified CDC framework. Neighborhood disadvantage and injury severity were measured using the Social Deprivation Index (SDI) and Injury Severity Score (ISS), respectively, with higher scores indicating greater disadvantage and severity. A Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) model was employed to assess the causal impact of COVID-19 on monthly child abuse/TBI admissions, SDI, and ISS. The study included 560 child abuse cases, with 62. 3% involving TBI. Before COVID-19, monthly admissions averaged 5. 89 for child abuse and 3. 70 for child abuse with TBI, with corresponding SDI scores of 60. 07 and 57. 60. During the COVID era, monthly averages rose to 8. 77 and 5. 58 (p = 0. 001, p
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Increased | Abuse |
| Monthly | Admissions |
| Pandemic | Bayesian |
| Pediatric | Causal |
| Socioeconomic | Covid |
| Disadvantage | |
| Injury | |
| Monthly | |
| Pandemic | |
| Sdi | |
| Series | |
| Severity | |
| Socioeconomic | |
| Status | |
| Tbi |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
| disease | MESH | child abuse |
| disease | MESH | Long Covid |