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Report cards released on Fridays linked to child abuse on Saturdays
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Younger children were more likely to be physically abused on a Saturday following the release of report cards on a Friday compared with when report cards were released on other days of the week, according to a study recently published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“We believe the most plausible explanation is that report cards which include negative remarks lead to severe punishment, and that this relationship is intensified with the unique qualities of a weekend (more substance use, less exposure to teachers),” Melissa A. Bright, PhD, an assistant research scientist at Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida, told Infectious Diseases in Children.
Bright and colleagues conducted a retrospective study of calls made to the Florida Department of Children and Families child abuse hotline and release dates of school report cards during one academic year in Florida. The researchers said they focused on children aged 5 to 11 years because that was the age of children that pediatricians linked physical abuse to report card release, and because primary school-aged children have the highest rates of corporal punishment and physical abuse among all children aged 5 to 18 years who would receive report cards.
Data were collected from Sept. 8, 2015, to May 30, 2016, in 67 Florida counties.
The researchers wrote that there were 167,906 calls made to the hotline regarding children aged 5 to 11 years, including 29,887 calls (17.8%) suspected of physical abuse. Of those calls, 2,017 (6.7%) were verified as cases of physical abuse. The number was adjusted to 1,943 cases in 64 counties after three counties were excluded for not having release dates available. Bright and colleagues included the 1,943 cases of abused children in their analysis (58.9% males; mean age, 7.69 years). They found that calls of verified reports of child physical abuse occurred at a higher rate on Saturdays after report cards were released on the prior Friday compared with Saturdays that did not follow a Friday with report card release (incident rate ratio = 3.75: 95% CI, 1.21-1.63). This was a nearly fourfold increase in incident rates compared with when report cards were released on other days of the week. No significant association was found between incident rates and report cards released on other days of the week.
“It would be helpful for pediatricians to be knowledgeable about when report cards are released in their school district and to talk to parents about their child’s school performance — with an emphasis on how families can be supported — before reports are released,” Bright said.
In a related editorial, Antoinette L. Laskey, MD, MPH, MBA, chief of the division of child protection and family health at the University of Utah, wrote that “changing a report card release date may cause some change in the number of physical abuse cases, but it will not solve the larger issue: it is still socially acceptable to hit a child to correct their behavior. Things are getting better, but there is clearly still room to improve. I believe our national report card would show a C– for effective discipline strategies in the United States.” – by Bruce Thiel
Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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