Study showed a lack of knowledge and uncertainty in recognizing and reporting CAN cases in Croatian dentists. They expressed the need for undergraduate and post-graduate continuing education on this issue.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the educational experiences of a group of Croatian dental students and to assess their knowledge about child abuse and neglect. In the study, 544 respondents (153 male and 391 female) from all six years at the University of Zagreb School of Dental Medicine completed questionnaires, with a response rate of 74.9 percent. A chisquare test was applied to test the differences among students' answers. Values of p<0.05 were considered statistically signiicant. Out of the total number of respondents, 33.6 percent had encountered the topic of child abuse and neglect during their lectures. The results show a lack of knowledge of the signs pointing to physical and sexual abuse of children. Students from more senior teaching years showed a greater amount of knowledge related to child abuse and neglect in contrast to students from more junior teaching years. In conclusion, dental students should be better educated and prepared for the important role of helping protect children from abuse and neglect.Ante Jordan is a

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted hospital care, as hospitals had to deal with a highly infectious virus, while at the same time continuing to fulfill the ongoing health service needs of their communities. This study examines the direct effects of COVID-19 on the delivery of inpatient care in Croatia.Materials and Methods: The research is a retrospective, comparative analysis of the hospital admission rate across all Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) classes before and during the pandemic. It is based on DRG data from all non-specialized acute hospitals in Croatia, which account for 96% of national inpatient activity. The study also used COVID-19 data from the Croatian Institute of Public Health (CIPH).Results: The results show a 21% decrease in the total number of admissions [incident rate ratio (IRR) 0.8, p &lt; 0.0001] across the hospital network during the pandemic in 2020, with the greatest drop occurring in April, when admissions plunged by 51%. The decrease in activity occurred in non-elective DRG classes such as cancers, stroke, major chest procedures, heart failure, and renal failure. Coinciding with this reduction however, there was a 37% increase (IRR 1.39, p &lt; 0.0001) in case activity across six COVID-19 related DRG classes.Conclusions: The reduction in hospital inpatient activity during 2020, can be attributed to a number of factors such as lock-downs and quarantining, reorganization of hospital operations, the rationing of the medical workforce, and the reluctance of people to seek hospital care. Further research is needed to examine the consequences of disruption to hospital care in Croatia. Our recommendation is to invest multidisciplinary effort in reviewing response procedures to emergencies such as COVID-19 with the aim of minimizing their impact on other, and equally important community health care needs.