Facilitators and barriers to medical evaluation of child maltreatment in northern British Columbia

The goal of this qualitative study was to gather insights into how the primary care system could maximize opportunities to identify and address child maltreatment when children present for both routine and acute medical care. Through personal semi-structured interviews with twelve northern physicians/nurse practitioners I learned about systemic barriers they faced which prevents health care providers from accessing critical health and social history, sharing diagnostic information with investigators in an understandable way, and developing competence in conducting these assessments. Participants provided practical suggestions for addressing these concerns and highlighted facilitators that assisted them in completing these assessments. As the national approach to primary care transitions to a new model of interprofessional primary care teams, it presents numerous opportunities to improve systemic procedures for information exchange and interprofessional collaboration. --Leaf i.