Director of Research, Vincent J. Fontana Center, NY Foundling, 590 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011, United States.
Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, United States.
Child Abuse Negl. 2019 Oct;96:104102. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104102. Epub 2019 Aug 3.
Psychological maltreatment (PM) is equivalent in harm to other forms of child maltreatment and yet it is not included in all US State child abuse statutes and past research using the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS, 1998, 2007, 2008) identified 300-480-fold differences in substantiated cases across US States. This variation is inconsistent with the significance of the problem and the availability of reliable operational definitions.
US State statutes were coded and compared with reported rates of four different forms of child maltreatment in the 2014 and 1998 NCANDS data sets.
Data were extracted from NCCANDS and State statutes were coded independently by the authors (kappa = .96).
For 2014, the difference in reported rates of PM between the State with the lowest rate and the State with the highest rate was 523-fold which was much higher than for physical (30-fold) and sexual abuse (20-fold) but not neglect (524-fold). Statutes still use the term "mental injury" from the original Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (Child Abuse Prevention & Treatment Act, 1974) and two thirds did not define it. Reported rates of PM in NCANDS were not correlated with whether PM was defined in the statute but when a harm standard was present, reported rates were statistically lower. Almost 70% of statutes mentioned a current trend (e.g., sexual/human trafficking) demonstrating a willingness by States to amend statutes.
A common, reliable definition of PM (and other forms of maltreatment) in CAPTA, NCANDS, and US State statutes is necessary for the US to have a surveillance system that allows for the assessment of the effects of policies on reported rates of all forms of maltreatment.
心理虐待（PM）与其他形式的儿童虐待同样具有危害性，但并非所有美国州的儿童虐待法规都包含 PM。过去使用国家儿童虐待和忽视数据系统（NCANDS，1998 年、2007 年、2008 年）的研究发现，美国各州的证实案例数量差异高达 300-480 倍。这种差异与问题的重要性和可靠操作定义的可用性不一致。
对美国州法规进行了编码，并将其与 2014 年和 1998 年 NCANDS 数据集中四种不同形式的儿童虐待报告率进行了比较。
从 NCCANDS 中提取数据，并由作者独立对州法规进行编码（kappa=0.96）。
对于 2014 年，报告率最低和最高的州之间 PM 的差异为 523 倍，远高于身体虐待（30 倍）和性虐待（20 倍），但与忽视（524 倍）不同。法规仍使用原始《儿童虐待预防和治疗法》（1974 年《儿童虐待预防与治疗法》）中的术语“精神伤害”，其中三分之二未对其进行定义。NCANDS 中报告的 PM 率与法规中是否定义 PM 无关，但当存在伤害标准时，报告率则会降低。近 70%的法规提到了当前的趋势（例如，性/人口贩卖），表明各州愿意修改法规。
在 CAPTA、NCANDS 和美国州法规中，PM（和其他形式的虐待）的共同、可靠定义是美国建立一个监测系统所必需的，该系统可用于评估政策对所有形式虐待报告率的影响。
