Evaluation of the effectiveness of education given to midwives in 0-6 age in the diagnosis of abuse and neglect

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the education given to midwives to diagnose 0-6 years of child abuse and neglect and to take necessary measures. Method: The study is a type of educational intervention conducted with midwives working in Family Health Centers in Bornova district of İzmir Provincial Health Directorate between 15 January 2019 and 22 February 2019. No sample selection was made in the study, it was planned to reach the whole population and 73 midwives accepted to participate in the study. A questionnaire containing the descriptive and sociodemographic information (Annex 2) and the Pre-Test-Post-Test (Annex 3) were applied to the midwives and 0-6 Age Abuse and Neglect Education Presentation (Annex 4) was made. The data were analyzed by coding in SPSS 16.0 program. Descriptive statistics (number, percentage, mean, median, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values), cross table and chi-square test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Wilcoxon test, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test and Sperman correlation analysis were performed on evaluation of data. The confidence interval was 95% (p=0.0.5). Results: The average age was 9.14±7.869 (min=1-max=38) years, the average age was 39.78±8.162 (min=20-max=57) and served an average of 225.11±107.651 (min=81-max=653) children in family health center and community health center depending on the health ministry Republic of Turkey in İzmir/Bornova. Midwives participated in the study; a total of 39 cases were suspected, 20 physical abuses, 13 emotional abuses, 1 sexual abuse, 5 suspected neglect, but only 3 reports were reported. 56.2% of the midwives did not report the lack of sufficient evidence of the subject, 89.0% of them could identify child abuse and neglect, 91.89% of them had to report child abuse and neglect according to the laws and 43.8% of them stated that the Ministry of Health could provide a standard training on this subject in order to complete the missing information. It was found that midwives scored 65.92±8.33 (min:48-max:88) points from the pre-test and 77.92±9.82 (min:52-max:92) points from the last test points before the training to measure the level of knowledge about diagnosing and reporting abuse and neglect at age 0-6. In the Wilcoxon analysis, statistically significant difference was found between pre-test and post-test of midwives (p<0.05). Conclusion: Children, who constitute an important population that midwives serve, are highly vulnerable to abuse and neglect due to their developmental period characteristics. In our study, 19.2% of midwives were exposed to abuse or neglect. The significant difference between the scores of midwives reveals the effectiveness of the given education (p<0.05). Midwives can diagnose cases of abuse and neglect, and the lack of information can be minimized thanks to training programs to be organized in cooperation with institutions. Thus, midwives can play a leading role in establishing a common network of assessment and intervention in child abuse and neglect, as in developed countries. Key Words: child; abuse and neglect; child maltreatment; midwife