Role of the medical community in detecting and managing child abuse

Child abuse is a common problem that all practitioners who see children should be able to recognise

Child abuse is common. In the 2011–12 financial year, Australia had over 250 000 notifications of suspected child abuse.1 Of the cases investigated, 45% were substantiated.1 Among non-substantiated cases, some were likely to have been abuse, but with not enough evidence to be confident that abuse had occurred because of the young age of the child in physical abuse or the lack of a witness in sexual abuse. This is a common problem in child abuse.