title: A brief two-item screener for detecting a history of physical or sexual abuse in childhood.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A number of medical practice guidelines and recommendations call for screening adult patients for a history of physical or sexual abuse in childhood, but no brief screening tools exist. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of a two-item screener for physical or sexual abuse in childhood.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a cross-sectional study of randomly selected women (aged 18-65 years) from a large health maintenance organization. One thousand two hundred twenty-five patients were administered a questionnaire, which included two items in a brief screener: (a) "When I was growing up, people in my family hit me so hard that it left me with bruises or marks" and (b) "When I was growing up, someone tried to touch me in a sexual way or tried to make me touch them." A subset of 216 patients completed a semistructured interview for a history of physical or sexual abuse in childhood.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The two-item screener was sensitive (84.8%) and specific (88.1%) for detecting a history of physical or sexual abuse in childhood, as determined by the semistructured interview.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The two-item screener provides an accurate tool, which is easily integrated into a comprehensive health questionnaire or administered verbally by a clinician, to assess for history of abuse.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital and McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 1E4. brett.thombs@mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Brett D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Thombs
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: Roy C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Ziegelstein
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.forename: Edward A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Walker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires