Child abuse and neglect awareness among future nurses: Does awareness influence attitudes towards reporting?

This study aimed to determine the relationship between nursing students' awareness of child abuse and neglect and their attitudes towards reporting.

The study sample consisted of 466 nursing students from two universities in Türkiye. The Participant Information Form, Child Abuse and Neglect Awareness Scale and the Attitudes of Healthcare Professionals Towards Reporting Child Maltreatment Scale were used to collect the research data. Independent groups t-test, one-way analysis of variance and post hoc analyses were used to examine the differences in scale levels according to the descriptive characteristics of the students. Pearson correlation and linear regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between the dimensions that determined the students' scale levels.

The average age of the students was 20.40 ± 2.93 years and the majority of them (75.8 %) were female. The mean total score for the CANA-S scale was 78.26 ± 7.71, and the mean total score for the reporting attitudes scale was 70.59 ± 7.48. There was a moderately significant and positive correlation between the total score of CANA-S and the total score of attitude towards reporting (r = 0.579; p < 0.001). Regression analysis shows a positive relationship between CANA-S total score and reporting attitudes (β = 0.579, p < 0.001). The explanatory power of the model, as measured by R², is 0.334, indicating that it accounts for approximately 33.4 % of the variability in reporting attitudes.

Results indicated that increased awareness of child abuse and neglect was associated with attitudes towards reporting. The findings underscore the significance of devising educational programmes to enhance nursing students' awareness of child abuse and neglect, which may subsequently increase their propensity to report suspected cases.