Designing and Evaluating a Child Maltreatment Surveillance System: Towards Improving the Management of Child Abuse Incidents

Child abuse is a significant global concern, with short-term and long-term consequences for the lives of children who are victims of violence. For effective action by decision-makers, the information and analysis obtained from surveillance systems must be used to determine the problem, the magnitude of maltreatment, its relationship with other issues, and the likelihood of preventing maltreatment. Due to the importance of child abuse and the management and control of this event, this study was conducted to design and evaluate a child abuse surveillance system. The system was designed in Visual Studio version 2017 using the C# programming language and ASP.NET framework. SQL Server was used to store the data. The design of the child abuse surveillance system was evaluated according to the usability evaluation. The minimum data set was indexed to collect and store data on abused children by the standard format. Web-based child abuse surveillance system (CASS) has 3 types of users. The system evaluation results showed that the highest number of problems were related to the principle of "help and documentation". Designing a CASS is a practical step in managing and controlling the data of abused children. This system and registration of information will help professionals, managers, and decision-makers make the right decisions to take care of injured children with up-to-date information