[Nutritional status in children victims of physical and sexual abuse]

To assess and relate the nutritional status by type of abuse in a pediatric population diagnosed with physical abuse (PA) and sexual abuse (SA).

It's a retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive study of 178 clinical records of children aged less than 12 years, attended at the Clinic for the Integral Care of the Abused Child of the Instituto Nacional de Pediatría and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (CAINM-INP-UNAM), during the period 1994 to 2005. The relationship of nutritional status with the type of abuse was analyzed in two age ranges (3 months to less than five years, and five to 11 years) and gender with Student t and chi-square tests.

We identified that, in girls PA was associated with stunting (PA: 48% vs. SA: 12%, p < 0.005 and PA: 21% vs. SA: 0%, p < 0.002) and wasting (PA: 21% vs. SA: 0%, p < 0.01 and PA: 21% vs. SA: 0%, p < 0.002). Whereas in girls SA was associated with overweight and obesity in age range five to 11 years (PA: 0% vs. SA: 31%; p < 0.01).

This study identified acute and chronic under nutrition in girls with PA, and overweight and obesity in girls with SA. These findings enrich the knowledge for the suspicion of maltreatment child syndrome during the search of the aetiology of the clinical expression studied.