Authors (including presenting author) :
Lau KY, Luk MC, Tam TY, Lau SL, Chim KM, Wu SHA, Ma PK, Cheung CH
Affiliation :
Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
According to official statistics, Kwun Tong District had the second highest number of child abuse cases in Hong Kong (12%, Jan-Sept2018). This is a retrospective service statistics review collated in the Department.
Objectives :
(1) To review the situation of child abuse admission in 2018 (2) To find out current challenge in managing child abuse cases (3) To improve our service and planning on child abuse cases
Methodology :
By reviewing all child abuse cases in 2018, we collected data of all cases on age, sex, length of stay, duration until mandated Multi-Disciplinary Case Conference (MDCC), classification of abuse, any hospital acquired infection, workplace violence occurrence, history of parental substance abuse and time spent on MDCC
Result & Outcome :
Number of suspected abused children admitted in 2016 and 2017 were 84 and 85 respectively but this had increased by 39% to 118 in 2018. In 2018, the mean age of children was 8.23 years at a male to female ratio of 1.42 to 1. The average length of stay was 10.4 days. Ten percent of children stayed for over 20 days. The MDCC was held on average on the 14th working day and lasted for 1.7 hours. 74% were considered abused or high risk cases. This consisted of physical abuse (78%), sexual abuse (7%), psychological abuse (1%), and neglect (16%). Nine children had child-minders with history of substance abuse. 6% had hospital acquired infections. Workplace violence occurred in 3% of cases managed. Public awareness of child abuse had resulted in sharp increase in hospital admissions. A child abuse management pathway specifying task for individual disciplines was followed and headed by a case manager. It involved collaboration among various hospital staff and with professionals from the community such as police, social workers and schools. Children hospitalised were prone to secondary psychological trauma, loss of schooling, hospital acquired infections and other risks. Further, there was associated work place violence managing these cases. The increase of child abuse cases also strained the hospital resources due to prolong hospitalization. This paper highlighted the importance of multi-disciplinary work guided by a uniform management pathway with a hospital lead person, and the need for close collaboration with community stakeholders. Training of staff and monitoring of service statistics are also pertinent.
Co-location with:
