NCJ Number
204317
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 25 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2001 Pages: 279-290
Editor(s)
Richard D. Krugman,
John M. Leventhal
Date Published
February 2001
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This paper presents the experiences of the first clinical multidisciplinary child abuse and neglect team in Turkey.
Abstract
Child abuse and neglect (CAN) is a fairly new issue for Turkish society, and public, professional, and governmental awareness of the issue is very low. In Turkey, physical discipline of children is approved and children are considered to belong to their parents. This cultural background predisposes the society to what is considered to be physical abuse in many other societies. Because the government was not responding to domestic violence and child abuse sufficiently, the authors, a group of physicians, founded the Izmir Child Abuse Follow-up Team in 1996. Following a training program in five teaching hospitals in Izmir, the authors kept a record of every case diagnosed with CAN from these hospitals between 1996 and 1998. This paper summarizes the demographic, epidemiological, and medical features of these cases. A total of 50 cases were diagnosed with CAN and followed-up. Analysis of the data shows that 76 percent of the patients were from the Dr. Behcet Uz Children’s Hospital, the only hospital that has established a multidisciplinary CAN team better equipped and trained to recognize CAN. The children ranged in age from 1 month to 25 years, with the mean age being 9.2 years; 46 percent of the children were male and 54 percent were female, respectively. The offender was the father in 38 percent of the cases, the mother in 28 percent, and multiple offenders in 34 percent of the cases. Maltreatment was severe in 76 percent of the cases compared to moderate in 24 percent of the cases; there were no mild cases of maltreatment. More than three CAN risk factors were present in 94 percent of the cases. The most frequent risk factors associated with CAN included: low educational level, parental psychological problems, low socioeconomic level, domestic violence, divorce, marital problems, parental alcohol dependency, and social isolation. These findings show that child abuse and neglect is a reality in Turkey. Physicians need training to diagnose and properly report CAN, and the implementation of a national CAN prevention program is an urgent need for Turkey. Tables and references