Identifying Children Potentially at Risk of Abuse at the Emergency Setting: A Qualitative Study on Healthcare Professionals

Abstract

Original Research | Volume 3 | Issue 1| 1 Copyright 2018 by Jamaludin ANSJ. This is an open-access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which allows to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and reproduce in any medium or format, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited. cc INTRODUCTION According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’s (UNICEF’s) World Report on Child Injury Prevention,1 while communicable diseases are still the primary killer of infants, injuries contribute significant proportions of deaths for children aged between 5 and 14 years (27%) and adolescents/young adults aged 15-29 years (40%). More specifically, drowning and road traffic injuries were reported to be the top ten causes of death amongst children between the ages of 1 to 14-years-old, and for those aged between 15 and 19 years old, road traffic injuries was the number one cause of death in the year 2004. Each year, injury and violence kills up to 950,000 children under 16 years of age and millions Objective To examine the current indicators used by medical healthcare professionals to identify the intent of child injury and the processes that are undertaken once potential child neglect, maltreatment or abuse is identified. Materials and Methods Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted at the ETD in three major hospitals in the Klang Valley, Malaysia which consists of specialists, medical officers, nurses and medical assistants.