Child Abuse and Neglect: Do We know enough? A Cross-sectional Study of Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavior of Dentists regarding Child Abuse and Neglect in Pune, India

Abstract

Introduction: Child abuse and neglect (CAN) is a significant global problem with a serious impact on the victims throughout their lives. Dentists have the unique opportunity to address this problem. However, reporting such cases has become a sensitive issue due to the uncertainty of the diagnosis. The authors are testing the knowledge of the dentists toward CAN and also trying to question the efforts of the educational institutions to improve this knowledge for the better future of the younger generation. Materials and methods:Questionnaire data were distributed to 1,106 members regarding their knowledge, professional responsibilities, and behavior concerning child abuse.Results: There were 762 responses to the questionnaire, yielding a response rate of 68.9%. Although dentists consider themselves able to identify suspicious cases, only a small percentage of the participants correctly identified all signs of abuse and 76.8% knew the indicators of child abuse. Most of them were willing to get involved in detecting a case and about 90% believed that it is their ethical duty to report child abuse. Only 7.2% suspected an abuse case in the past. The numbers indicate a lack of awareness about CAN in these participants. No differences were observed between sexes, year of graduation, types of license, frequency at which children were treated, and formal training already received. Child Conclusion:A large proportion of child physical abuse cases go undocumented and unreported. The data showed that not all dental care providers and students were prepared to fulfill their legal and professional responsibilities in these situations.Clinical significance: There should be modifications in the dental school curriculum focusing on educational experiences regarding child abuse to strengthen their capability to care and protect children.

The “Neglected” Relationship Between Child Maltreatment and Oral Health? An International Scoping Review of Research

“…Several studies found, like Cukovic-Bagic et al (2015), that this could lead to misattribution errors in diagnosis and/or result in inconsistent documentation of potential signs of abuse and neglect (da Fonseca et al, 1992; Hazar Bodrumlu, Avsar & Arslan, 2018; Kvist, Annerback & Dahllof, 2018; Preethi, Einstein & Sivapathasundharam, 2011). Similar findings were made by Deshpande et al (2015), Hussein, Ahmad, Ibrahim, Yusoff and Ahmad (2016), Kaur et al (2016), Malpani et al (2017), Mogaddam, Kamal, Merdad and Alamoudi (2016), Al-Jundi, Zawaideh and Al-Rawi (2010), Sonbol et al (2012), Thomas, Straffon and Inglehart (2006), Tilvawala, Murray, Farah and Broadbent (2014), and Uldum, Christensen, Welbury and Poulsen (2010).…”

“…Several papers called for child protection training to become a mandatory and continuous feature of undergraduate and postgraduate dental education (e.g., Flander, Tarabic & Cukovic-Bagic, 2015; Gutmann & Solomon, 2002; Jessee & Martin, 1998; Malpani et al, 2017), and four papers reported on evaluations of CAN-focused training programs. Al-Dabaan, Asimakopoulou and Newton (2016) and Shapiro, Anderson and Lal (2014) piloted online training modules and reported an improvement in practitioners’ knowledge following completion of the program.…”

Dentists’ intention to report suspected violence: a cross-sectional study in eight Arab countries

“…In our study, respondents had positive professional attitude towards reporting violence (mean=7.5/10) which agrees with previous studies from Saudi Arabia concerning reporting suspected child abuse 9 and domestic violence. 27 It also agrees with the positive attitude expressed by dentists towards their role in managing child abuse in India, 28 Scotland, 16 Jordan, 6 Brazil 20 and Greece 29 as well as domestic violence reporting in Brazil, 17 India 30 and France. 5 Such positive professional attitude—similar to dentists’ attitude in other countries—might differ from some negative attitudes and practices in Arab societies that are seen in violence statistics.…”

Child abuse and the role of a dentist in its identification, prevention and protection: A literature review

“…It is seen that dental graduates are not well prepared to recognize such cases, and even if they can do that, they do not have adequate knowledge about how or where to report them. [ 16 17 ]…”