The prevalence and nature of abuse and neglect in children under four: a national survey

✍ Scribed by Else Christensen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 155 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0952-9136
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0852(199903/04)8:2<109::aid-car528>3.0.co;2-f

✦ Synopsis

This paper reports the results from a Danish national survey of child abuse and neglect. Data were obtained by a written questionnaire sent to all home health visitors. All newborn Danish children receive visits by a home health visitor several times during their ®rst year of life. For children in need of special care for social reasons the visits may continue until school age (at 6 or 7 years). The questionnaire included four checklists of signs of abuse and neglect. The home health visitors were asked to record what they had actually observed visiting the children in their homes. Eightythree per cent (covering about 80% of all newborns) answered the questionnaire. The objective was to establish a scienti®c based framework that could be used to guide preventive eorts. Ten per cent of all children under 1 year of age may be characterized as children in need of special care for social reasons, the most frequent single reason being reliance on social assistance, alcohol abuse or violence against the mother. A minimum of 4% of infants are subjected to broadly de®ned abuse or neglect from one or more of the four categories: physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse and emotional neglect, physical and emotional neglect being the most frequent and physical maltreatment the most rare.