Child Maltreatment: Skills and Perceptions as Competencies in Higher Nursing Education

Child maltreatment is any action, neglect or aggression towards a child caused by parents, family members or others. The objective of this study is to find out the beliefs and attitudes regarding abuse among nursing students.

This was an exploratory study with the aim of validating the questionnaire, made up of four dimensions. This questionnaire was administered during the 2020/2021 academic year to 370 undergraduate nursing students (first and third year), in Toledo, Talavera de la Reina and Albacete of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in addition to resident nurses, master's students and doctoral students during the first four-month period (September, October, November and December). A statistical analysis was carried out observing internal consistency for Cronbach's alpha.

In total, 61.6% of the students concluded that the child was not responsible for maltreatment, and 41.6% thought that it was independent of gender. Furthermore, 65.7% stated that it is human nature for parents to care for their children, 74.1% considered maltreatment to be a crime in the family, and 15.4% said that it does not exist in higher social classes. A total of 23.2% said that those in nursing professions should not intervene in child abuse. With regard to Münchausen syndrome, there was less agreement among the participants, being unknown to the great majority of the students.

Among the participants, a lack of knowledge about child abuse was observed, as well as the role of nursing in its detection. Subsequently, given the importance of nursing and its professionals in the detection and management of child abuse, it is necessary to implement knowledge and skills in undergraduate training.