A hospital-based child protection programme evaluation instrument: a modified Delphi study.
OBJECTIVE
Refine instrument for auditing hospital-based child abuse and neglect violence intervention programmes prior to field-testing.


METHODS
A modified Delphi study to identify and rate items and domains indicative of an effective and quality child abuse and neglect intervention programme. Experts participated in four Delphi rounds: two surveys, a one-day workshop and the opportunity to comment on the penultimate instrument.


METHODS
New Zealand.


METHODS
Twenty-four experts in the field of care and protection of children.


METHODS
Items with panel agreement >or=85% and mean importance rating >or=4.0 (scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important)).


RESULTS
There was high-level consensus on items across Rounds 1 and 2 (89% and 85%, respectively). In Round 3 an additional domain (safety and security) was agreed upon and cultural issues, alert systems for children at risk, and collaboration among primary care, community, non-government and government agencies were discussed. The final instrument included nine domains ('policies and procedures', 'safety and security', 'collaboration', 'cultural environment', 'training of providers', 'intervention services', 'documentation' 'evaluation' and 'physical environment') and 64 items.


CONCLUSIONS
The refined instrument represents the hallmarks of an ideal child abuse and neglect programme given current knowledge and experience. The instrument enables rigorous evaluations of hospital-based child abuse and neglect intervention programmes for quality improvement and benchmarking with other programmes.
Wilson
Denise
D
School of Public Health and Psychological Studies, AUT University, Private Bag 92 006, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. denisel.wilson@aut.ac.nz
Koziol-McLain
Jane
J
Garrett
Nick
N
Sharma
Pritika
P
D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000517:prevention & control; D002669:Child Welfare; D003697:Delphi Technique; D004493:Education; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000592:standards; D006739:Hospital Administration / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000592:standards; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000592:standards