Suspected child abuse and neglect cases in a single tertiary hospital in Malaysia - a 5-year retrospective study

BACKGROUND: Published reports by the Social Welfare Department of Malaysia suggests that child abuse and neglect cases has been steadily increasing. There is a lack of basic data and qualitative study on child maltreatment in Malaysia.

OBJECTIVE: The aim is to describe the pattern and demographic features of all suspected child abuse and neglect (SCAN) cases seen in a single tertiary hospital in Malaysia over a period of five years.

METHODS: A retrospective descriptive review of children suspected of maltreatment, aged 0 to 18 years old who presented to the Hospital Serdang (HS), Selangor, Malaysia from January 2014 to December 2018 was done. A list of registered SCAN cases obtained from One Stop Crisis Centre (OSCC) HS census. Clinical information of patients was retrieved from the computerised database.

RESULTS: In all, there were a total of 391 SCAN cases over five years with almost a 3-fold increase in the number of cases from 2014 to 2018. Physical abuse was the most common (55%) seen followed by sexual abuse (34%) and neglect (10%). There were four deaths, all involving infants <1 year old who were physically abused by babysitters. The main perpetrator in sexual abuse were people known to the victim. Ninety-three percent of patients were neglected by their biological parents and more than 2/3rd of neglect cases occurred due to inadequate supervision.

DISCUSSION: Child maltreatment is an inevitable burden to our health system and infants are the most vulnerable group to sustain significant injuries leading to death and disabilities.