Anonymous reports of child physical abuse: are they as serious as reports from other sources?

Anonymous reports of child physical abuse were compared to reports made by professionals and by nonprofessionals on three characteristics: substantiation rate, seriousness of substantiated incidents, and severity of allegations. Data pertinent to the characteristics were abstracted from 1,207 reports made to the Baltimore City Department of Social Services during 1983. Results suggest that reports made by anonymous sources are more likely to be unfounded than reports made by the other two sources. However, despite the lower substantiation rate, those few anonymous reports (15.5%) that do get substantiated seem to represent equally as serious incidents of physical abuse as founded reports from the other two sources. An attempt to explain the lower substantiation rate of anonymous reports in terms of seriousness of allegations reveals that professional but not nonprofessional reporters make more serious allegations than anonymous reporters. Discussion focuses on drawing conclusions about anonymous reports from existing knowledge and recommendations for future research.