Early prediction of child maltreatment?

Prediction of child maltreatment has been an elusive goal, partially because little prospective data has been available from which to generate predictive hypotheses, partially because some researchers have tended to adhere to one or another of the models of child maltreatment to the exclusion of the others, and partially because what predictive data do exist have tended to be difficult to obtain or utilize and thus have not been widely adopted. The present study was designed to predict child maltreatment using several measures which were collected prospectively, which represent the generally accepted models of child maltreatment, and which are relatively easy to obtain. Data were used from the prenatal period through the child's fourth month of life to predict maltreatment through the third year of life. Measures included information of the mother's family of origin, her personality, stresses, her view of her baby's temperment, her health, and the baby's health. These measures accounted for 34% of the variance in predicting maltreatment outcome. It is suggested that these data could be used primarily by hospital personnel for predicting abuse, given the health‐related nature of several of the measures.