Background
CM
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that every child has a right to the highest attainable standard of health and a childhood free from violence and neglect [CM, defined by the World Health Organization as “the perpetration of physical, sexual and psychological/emotional violence and neglect of infants, children and adolescents aged 0–17 years by parents, caregivers and other authority figures”, is highly prevalent and remains a major public health and social welfare problem [The youngest and most vulnerable children are often those most exposed to CM. The risk of maltreatment among children 0–4 years is twice that of children 5–14 years [There is evidence that CM may be prevented through programs that address its causes and risk factors [Evaluations of the the SEEK-model in two randomized controlled trials in the U.S. showed that the professionals who used the model felt more secure in addressing psychosocial risk factors and did so more often in their practice compared to professionals in the control group [The Swedish child health services (CHS) is a primary care-based organization that offers infants and preschool-aged children (0–6 years) regular health visits at dedicated child health centers (CHCs) free of charge [At present, the CHS lacks a systematic and structured approach to identifying common psychosocial risk factors in the home environment that increase the risk of CM. Within the framework of a broader randomized study of the SEEK model in the Swedish CHS, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a newly developed Swedish version of the SEEK-PSQ (PSQ-S) compared to standardized lengthier instruments. As previous research has indicated that the performance of some established screening instruments for psychosocial problems differs between genders [