Case file coding of child maltreatment: Methods, challenges, and innovations in a longitudinal project of youth in foster care.

ABSTRACT: State social service agency case files are a common mechanism for obtaining information about a child's maltreatment history, yet these documents are often challenging for researchers to access, and then to process in a manner consistent with the requirements of social science research designs. Specifically, accessing and navigating case files is an extensive undertaking, and a task that many researchers have had to maneuver with little guidance. Even after the files are in hand and the research questions and relevant variables have been clarified, case file information about a child's maltreatment exposure can be idiosyncratic, vague, inconsistent, and incomplete, making coding such information into useful variables for statistical analyses difficult. The Modified Maltreatment Classificat

SUBMITTER: Huffhines L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5269573 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature