Publication: Compliance to follow-up among the child abuse cases: A single centre study
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Date
2022
Authors
Halim, Siti Rabihah Abdu
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Abstract
Child abuse remains a taboo topic among the local Malaysian. It is associated with cultural belief especially in sexual abuse where the consequences of act fall on victims and its family members in relation to perpetrators (incest), social embarrassment, emotional, consequences and social issues. It is importance for follow up post episode to ensure wellbeing/ determine emotional state of the victim. Poor socioeconomic background, type of abuse especially sexual abuse mainly one of risk factor for noncompliance to follow up. Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team was developed in Malaysia in 1985 as an organization to safeguard children from abuse and neglect. Subsequently, August 1997, SCAN team was established at Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). It is a multidisciplinary team involvement as it integrates multi-departments collaboration. Objective: The aim of the study was to explore the type of child abuse cases and explore risk factors associated with non-compliance to follow up. Methods and materials: The list of cases of was obtained from Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team at Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia. A standardized proforma was made to capture demographic and clinical data. A retrospective case note review was done in cases captured from year 2014 until 2020, where 392 cases were identified. Results: Only 311 folders could be traced and included in the study, while others unable to trace from record office due to missing folders. Sexual abuse cases were reported in the 261 cases (83.9%) followed by remaining physical abuse cases. Physical and emotional neglect were not documented as it may co-exist with other abuse and was not captured due to its retrospective record review. There were 190 (61.1%) children who were non-compliant to follow up in the study period. Simple binary logistic regression revealed that the significant factors associated with non-compliance to follow up following SCAN team review were age (between 14-18years old, COR 1.60, 95% CI 1.01-2.80, P value of 0.048), type of abuse (sexual abuse, COR 1.72, 95% CI 0.94-3.16, P value of 0.08) and educational level of patients (COR 1.37, 95% CI 0.85-2.20, p value of 0.19). In multiple logistic regression, we were not able to identify significant factors associated with non-compliance to follow-up at the outpatient’s clinic. Conclusion: This study provides a descriptive study on the child abuse cases locally. We could not identify any association from the sociodemographic profile to associate with the non-compliance to follow-up.
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Keywords
child abuse , compliance