Child Protection Team at the Training and Research Hospital in Turkey: Three years of experience

Abstract

Child Protection Team at The Training and Research Hospital in Turkiye: Three Years of Experience

Abstrac

Introduction

The Child Protection Unit at Gulhane Training and Research Hospital (GEAH), affiliated with the Ministry of Health, was established to minimize the traumatization of children who have been abused and neglected and to carry out all procedures in the best interest of the child. The purpose of this article is to retrospectively review the case series followed by GÜLÇOK and to describe the establishment and functioning of the first child protection team structured among hospitals affiliated with the Ministry of Health.

Method

This study retrospectively analyzed Gulhane Child Protection Unit’s (GÜLÇOK) patients that were diagnosed with abuse and neglect between 2019 and 2022. Analyzes were performed using the SPSS 22 software program.

Results

A total of 134 children, 86 (64.2%) girls and 48 (35.8%) boys, aged 1 day to 17 years were studied in GULÇOK. The mean age of the children evaluated in GULÇOK was 9.87 ± 5.99 years. It was found that girls were more often physically and sexually abused (71% and 85%, respectively) than boys. The cases of neglect were higher in boys than in girls (53.3%) (p=0.005). The rate of neglect was higher than the rate of sexual abuse at ages 0-2 years (30%) and the rate of sexual abuse was statistically higher than the rate of neglect at ages 13-18 years (72.7%) (p=0.001).

Conclusion

The perception of child abuse and neglect as a problem in Turkiye is still very recent. The number of child protection facilities and centers are increasing.  However, these hospital-based centers are mostly located in university hospitals. Therefore child protection units will contribute to a more accurate determination of the incidence of child abuse and neglect in Turkiye. In addition, increasing the number of departments will ensure communication between departments, increase knowledge and experience regarding the interventions to be carried out, and strengthen the equipment of physicians in this regard.

Keywords; abuse, neglect, child protection team, child