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Article History

Received: 16 April 2024

Revised: 14 August 2024

Accepted: 22 September 2024

First Online: 28 October 2024

Compliance with ethical standards

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: The scientific guarantor of this publication is Daniel Wittschieber, Institute of Legal Medicine, University Hospital Bonn, Germany.

: The authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies, whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article.

: No complex statistical methods were necessary for this paper.

: Written informed consent was waived by the Institutional Review Board.

: Institutional Review Board approval was obtained by the ethical boards of all participating institutions, which are the university hospitals of the North Rhine-Westphalian cities of Cologne, Essen, and Münster; reference number: 2014–658-f-N (ethics committee of the Medical Association of Westfalen Lippe and the Westphalian Wilhelms University). In addition, the study has been approved and supported by the Ministry of Justice of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Attorney General’s Office (file number: 1410 E-II. 75/17).

: Some study subjects or cohorts have been previously reported in Feld et al ([]; ), by Feld et al ([]; ), “Violence against children by means of shaken baby syndrome: criminal-sociological studies on the socio-economic state of suspects who made a confession“ by Hahnemann et al ([]; ), and by Hahnemann et al ([]; ).

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