VCUG Research
Critically Appraised Studies About VCUG Trauma
In this guide, we review decades of critically appraised research about pediatric VCUG trauma.
Drawing by a former VCUG patient, age 10
Research About VCUG & Child Sexual Abuse (CSA)
Decades of critically appraised research reflect how invasive the test feels to a child, which is described by many survivors as comparable to sexual assault.
1997
"The study which has come closest to identifying the factors likely to be involved in children’s recall of child sexual abuse is a study [...] involving children who experienced a [VCUG] test...Goodman’s study was unique in its inclusion of direct, painful, and embarrassing genital contact, involving the child’s being genitally penetrated and voiding in the presence of the medical staff. Goodman found that several factors led to greater forgetting of the event: embarrassment, lack of discussion of the procedure with parents, and PTSD symptoms. These are precisely the dynamics likely to operate in a familial abuse situation.”
1998
"Healthcare professionals often perceive invasive procedures such as surgery and needle biopsies as more painful and threatening to the child than 'test[s]' such as VCUGs. However, clinical experience indicates that the VCUG is often perceived by children as more highly distressing than other procedures."
2004
“The VCUG procedure was used as the target event in this study because it is similar in many ways to child sexual abuse...These results suggest a high rate of similarity between the features common to child sexual abuse and those common to the VCUG procedure."
2007
"In Buffalo, they were way overdoing this procedure. This procedure is not very pleasant and a bit like rape. There is no anesthesia, the parents are forced outside of the room when the catheter is inserted...a lot of parents didn’t even know what the procedure was like. Some of the research assistants couldn’t even be in the room.”