This is the current release of the guideline.

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Policies are reviewed every 3 years by the authoring body, at which time a recommendation is made that the policy be retired, revised, or reaffirmed without change. Until the Board of Directors approves a revision or reaffirmation, or retires a statement, the current policy remains in effect.

• Child safety
• Missing children, including runaways, thrownaways (children forced to leave their homes), family and nonfamily abductions, and children missing with benign explanations

Counseling
Management
Prevention
Risk Assessment
Screening

Family Practice
Pediatrics
Preventive Medicine
Psychology

Advanced Practice Nurses
Nurses
Physician Assistants
Physicians
Psychologists/Non-physician Behavioral Health Clinicians
Social Workers

• To describe the categories of missing children and prevalence of each
• To recommend prevention strategies that primary care pediatricians can share with parents to increase awareness and education about the safety of their children

Infants, children, and adolescents and their parents or caregivers

• Risk and incidence of missing, abducted, runaway, and thrownaway children
• Risk and incidence of physical and psychological harm to missing, abducted, runaway and thrownaway children
• Effectiveness of strategies at preventing and recovering missing children

Searches of Electronic Databases

Not stated

Not stated

Not stated

Not applicable

Review

Not stated

Not stated

Not applicable

A formal cost analysis was not performed and published cost analyses were not reviewed.

Peer Review

Not stated

1. Help parents and children put the risk of becoming missing in perspective.
2. Encourage families to teach children self-identifying information without connecting it to a threat of becoming missing.
3. Encourage families to keep a high-quality and current photograph of each child.
4. Encourage families to teach children to accept only touches that are comfortable to them regardless of the toucher's relationship to them.
5. Encourage families to teach older children, especially girls, to "know the rules":
   • When going out, don't go out alone.
   • Always tell an adult where you are going.
   • Say "no" if you feel threatened.
6. Consider advocating for an appropriate personal- safety curriculum to be taught in schools and check its approach.
7. Continually screen for risk factors for missing children (i.e., family discord, divorce, coercive parenting, substance abuse, school failure, deviant peer group, etc) and intervene early with appropriate work-up and referrals.
8. Assess whether adolescents consider themselves to have several sources of support, including the pediatrician, so that they need not resort to running away.
9. Be skeptical of new patients presenting with vague stories about absent parents or children who report mysterious parent deaths or separations without contact, because they may represent abductions.
10. Insist on prompt transfer of medical records as a routine practice.
11. Support programs that serve runaways.
12. Consider providing or coordinating comprehensive care to any families who have just had a missing child returned.
13. Expose programs spuriously generating fear of abduction.
14. Look at and encourage others to look at pictures of missing children.

None provided

The type of evidence supporting each recommendation is not specifically stated.

• Increased parental awareness and education about the safety of their children
• Prevention of child abductions, runaways, and thrownaways (children forced to leave their homes) and the subsequent physical and psychological harm
• Successful location and safe return of missing children

Not stated

The guidance in this report does not indicate an exclusive course of treatment or serve as a standard of medical care. Variations, taking into account individual circumstances, may be appropriate.

An implementation strategy was not provided.

Staying Healthy

Effectiveness
Patient-centeredness

Not applicable: The guideline was not adapted from another source.

2004 Oct

American Academy of Pediatrics - Medical Specialty Society

American Academy of Pediatrics

Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, 2002-2003

Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, 2002-2003 Members: Jane Meschan Foy, MD (Chairperson); William L. Coleman, MD; Edward Goldson, MD; Cheryl L. Hausman, MD; Ana Navarro, MD; Thomas J. Sullivan, MD; J. Lane Tanner, MD; Joseph F. Hagan, Jr, MD (Past Committee Member); Barbara J. Howard, MD (Past Committee Member)

Liaisons: F. Daniel Armstrong, PhD, Society of Pediatric Psychology; Janet Mims, MS, CPNP, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners; Sally E. A. Longstaffe, MD, Canadian Paediatric Society; Frances J. Wren, MD, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Consultant: George J. Cohen, MD, National Consortium for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Invited Contributor: Daniel D. Broughton, MD

Staff: Karen Smith

Not stated

This is the current release of the guideline.

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Policies are reviewed every 3 years by the authoring body, at which time a recommendation is made that the policy be retired, revised, or reaffirmed without change. Until the Board of Directors approves a revision or reaffirmation, or retires a statement, the current policy remains in effect.

None available

None available

This NGC summary was completed by ECRI on November 18, 2004. The information was verified by the guideline developer on January 3, 2005.

This NGC summary is based on the original guideline, which is subject to the guideline developer's copyright restrictions. Please contact the Permissions Editor, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), 141 Northwest Point Blvd, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007.