The Turkish Journal of Pediatrics
2012 , Vol 54 , Num 4
The analysis of child abuse and neglect cases assessed by a multidisciplinary study group between 2005–2008
Departments of 1Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2Pediatrics, and 3Forensic Medicine, Hacettepe University Faculty of
Medicine, Ankara, Turkey. E-mail: dilsad_ozdemir@yahoo.com
This study aimed to evaluate the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of child
abuse and neglect (CAN) cases. Subjects were 102 cases that were clinically
assessed by the multidisciplinary hospital team. Early and late childhood
cases (according to the age at first abuse) were compared by means of
characteristics of abuse. Among the 102 subjects, 64 were female and 38
were male (mean age: 8.68 years). Being abused by someone within the
family was found to be significantly higher in preschool children compared
to children in late childhood. 27.5% (n: 28) of the cases concomitantly had
low socioeconomic and educational level and high parental psychological
problems and 64.8% had psychiatric problems. A limited number of studies
have compared characteristics of early and late childhood abuse considering
the age of onset of maltreatment. Consistent with the literature, our study
showed that early age of onset of maltreatment is a poor prognostic factor
in many ways.
Keywords :
child abuse, neglect, early childhood, multidisciplinary team.