Knowledge and Attitudes of Medical and Nursing Students in Greece Regarding Child Abuse and Neglect

Abstract

Data on the knowledge and attitudes of healthcare practitioners in training regarding child abuse and neglect (CAN) are scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the knowledge and attitudes regarding CAN of medical and nursing students in Greek universities. We performed a questionnaire-based e-survey on a convenience sample of students and recruited 609 students (366 medical and 243 nursing). An unsatisfactory level of knowledge in the field was reported overall. Most of the students (92.2%) were aware of their future responsibility to protect vulnerable children and report suspected cases of CAN; at the same time, they were willing to obtain further education. Based on the above, appropriate training in the undergraduate curriculum should be developed in order to strengthen future healthcare practitioners and boost their confidence in dealing with suspected cases of CAN and protect children’s welfare.

Knowledge of child abuse and neglect in nursing students: Assessment and perspectives

“…This review yielded a few studies. In one of them, Pisimisi et al assessed the knowledge and attitude of a Greek population [8]. However, a direct comparison of the results of the two studies is not possible because Pisimisi et al's questions, especially those referring to specific knowledge on this topic, differed from those of this study.…”

“…This study clearly indicates that the lack of adequate teaching/training in nursing schools is a possible cause of inadequate knowledge among professional nurses. As mentioned previously, there are few studies on this topic in the scientific literature [8, 9, 15–17]. The available studies seem to agree that the origin of poor knowledge can be related to insufficient training in schools [8, 9, 16, 17].…”

“…Particularly, they asked nursing students to self-rate their awareness of child abuse and neglect using a 5-point Likert scale. Therefore, their analysis was based on self-reported (subjective) knowledge [8]. However, in this study, we aimed to evaluate objective knowledge using multiple-choice questions.…”

“…In light of the above, articles analyzing nursing students' knowledge of child abuse and neglect are hardly comparable due to different study designs. Despite these differences, all the aforementioned articles pointed out the following common result: nursing students from different countries demonstrated similar unsatisfactory levels of knowledge about child abuse and neglect [8,15].…”

“…Few studies have explored healthcare providers' ability to correctly identify signs, symptoms, and factors suspicious of child abuse and neglect. Some authors have pointed out that due to a lack of knowledge, nurses can miss the red flags of child abuse and neglect, attributing them to natural conditions and/or accidental traumas [8]. The lack of education and training in these healthcare workers can result in a failure to protect children.…”