An article in The New York Times last week reported on a recent study done on the effects of child abuse investigations.    The study looked at interview data with 595 children who lived in families known to be at risk for child maltreatment.  The children were interviewed at age 4 and again at age 8; and 164 of the 595 subjects were in families investigated by CPS (Child Protective Services) for possible child maltreatment during that time period.  The researchers looked for differences between the investigated and uninvestigated subjects in seven known risk factors for child maltreatment:  poverty, family functioning, social support, maternal depressive symptoms, maternal education, child anxious or depressive behavior and child aggressive behavior.  They found no significant differences in these factors between those families that had been investigated during the four year period and those families that had not been investigated during that time.  The sole exception was maternal depression: mothers in investigated families had more depressive symptoms than mothers whose families were not investigated.  To put it plainly, these children were at high risk of being maltreated when the study began, and they remained at high risk four years later, whether or not they had experienced CPS investigation.

The authors comment that the results are not surprising, given that many of the risk factors that were studied are not usually addressed by the interventions that follow child protective services investigations.