[Child abuse in Cameroon: evaluation of a training course on awareness, detection, and reporting of child abuse]

The twofold purpose of this study was to promote and facilitate awareness, detection and reporting of child abuse by improving the diagnostic ability of a group of pediatric care providers working in pediatric emergency rooms and to evaluate the impact of training on awareness, detection and reporting of child abuse. This study was conducted in three phases. In the first phase data were retrospectively collected for a three-month period prior to the study (May, June, and July 1996). In the second phase a training seminar about awareness, detection, and reporting of child abuse was organized from April 29 to 30, 1997 for pediatric care providers working in the pediatric emergency rooms of several facilities in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Trainees included pediatricians, general practitioners, nurses, and social workers. An oral presentation using 137-slides (visual diagnosis of physical abuse) from the American Academy of Paediatrics (1994) was used as a teaching aid. In the third phase the same data as in the first phase was prospectively collected on the same three-month period after the seminar (May, June and July 1997). As in the first phase data was collected by the same person from emergency room registers according to the WHO protocol (1994) (study of interpersonal physical abuse of children). During the first phase 39 cases of physical abuse were reported in a population 1269 consulting patients, i.e. 3.1% of the cohort. In the third phase prospective analysis of reporting following the training seminar showed that 161 cases of physical abuse were reported in a population of 1425 consulting patients, i.e., 11.3% of the cohort. The victim group (n=161) in the third phase was four-fold larger than the victim group in the first phase (n = 39). These findings suggest that the seminar achieved its main goals, i.e., to improve the diagnostic ability of the trainees and to increase detection and screening of physical abuse of children.