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A Survey of Emergency Healthcare Workers’ Views about Child Abuse

이승원 1 차원철 1 SHIN, TAE GUN ORD ID 1 sim min seob ORD ID 1 JO, IK JOON 1 송근정 1 정연권 1 이태림 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Child abuse is a serious social problem in contemporary Korean society. Health care providers have an important role to play in combatting this problem. However, the reality is that the reporting rate of child abuse among health care providers is very low. This survey, which was conducted during two weeks in June 2013 sought to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and experiences about child abuse among workers in hospital emergency rooms. A total of 103 out of 112 people (92.0%) targeted subjects answered a questionnaire concerning subjects’ characteristics, education concerning child abuse, awareness,knowledge, attitudes in reporting suspected cases, and the ability to recognize signs of abuse. Approximately 54.4% of subjects reported they did not receive enough training concerning child abuse, only 26.2% claimed to know how to report child abuse, and 4.9% had any experience in reporting abuse. The reason cited most often (75.7%) for not reporting suspected abuse was the fear of asking the child’s parents. Approximately 67.9% of respondents did not know that they can be punished for failingto report suspected abuse. This study found that there are many obstacles to the proper reporting of child abuse. Health care providers working in emergency rooms must uphold their ethical and legal responsibilities when they suspect that abuse has occurred. For this purpose, education as well as legal and social support is needed.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.