Identification of Child Abuse in The Dental Office

Abstract

Through the bibliographical research and thanks to the survey carried out in this article, we determined the knowledge, procedures and attitudes of the dentists of the Universidad Regional Autónoma de los Andes "Uniandes" towards physically, psychologically and sexually abused children in the dental office. A descriptive study was carried out with a sample of 44 dentists from the Universidad Regional Autónoma de los Andes. It was found that the dentists who work as teachers in the UNIANDES and in turn work in both private and public consultations, accelerated that the public sector has a greater knowledge of the visual signs that could determine the physical, psychological and sexual abuse of the child. attended in the consultation and at the same time more than half of the professionals have knowledge of the legislation of the duty to report,  but are unaware of the same sanctions by not filing the formal complaint. A relevant finding is that dentists were not interested in looking for extraoral marks that prove child abuse, but upon identifying them they would be willing to report it.