Exploration of trends in the incidence and prevalence of childhood maltreatment and domestic abuse recording in UK primary care: a retrospective cohort study using 'the health improvement network' database.

Objectives Describe the epidemiology of childhood maltreatment and domestic abuse (in women). Design Analysis of longitudinal records between 1 January 1995 to 31 December 2018. Setting UK primary care database: ‘The Health Improvement Network’ (THIN). Participants 11 831 850 eligible patients from 787 contributing practices. Childhood maltreatment and domestic abuse (women only) were defined as the presence of a recorded Read code. Outcome measures The incidence rate (IR) and prevalence of childhood maltreatment (in children aged 0–18 years) and domestic abuse (in women aged over 18) between 1996 and 2017. An adjusted incidence rate ratio (aIRR) is given to examine the differences in IRs based on sex, ethnicity and deprivation. Results The age and gender breakdown of THIN has been previously reported to be representative of the UK population, however, there is substantial missing information on deprivation quintiles ( Conclusion Despite recent improvements in recording, there is still a substantial under-recording of maltreatment and abuse within UK primary care records, compared with currently existing sources of childhood maltreatment and domestic abuse data. Approaches must be implemented to improve recording and detection of childhood maltreatment and domestic abuse within medical records.