Do Inter-Country Differences in the Frequency of Abusive Head Trauma Reflect Different Proportions of Overdiagnosis of Abuse or True Differences in Abuse?

摘要

The register study by Yamaoka et al examines presumptive ( = 324) and possible abusive head trauma (AHT) ( = 2,603) in infants up to 1 year of age derived from hospital discharge data based on the ICD-10 codes of head trauma, retinal haemorrhage, and intentional injuries, with exclusion of unintentional injury and fall accidents. They report an incidence of 7.2 per 100,000 and 41.7 per 100,000 for presumptive AHT and possible AHT respectively. Sweden had 2.3 per 100,000 infants born 1997–2014 with abuse diagnoses and subdural haemorrhage (SDH), including acute non-traumatic SDH, while the British Isles had 14.2 infants per 100,000 with SDH and abuse diagnosis during the years 1998–1999.