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Challenges of reporting child abuse by healthcare professionals: A narrative review

Child abuse is one of the most challenging social problems worldwide. Failure to report child abuse may lead to the aggravation of the situation and increase the probability of further abuses. This study aimed to determine the challenges of child abuse reports by healthcare professionals. This narrative review study was conducted through searching the databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and ProQuest. The inclusion criterion was studies in Persian and English languages which published in scientific journals between 1978 and 2017 and also refer to reporting child maltreatment. Studies which, despite referring to a child abuse, did not refer to the barriers to the reporting of child abuse were discarded from further analysis. 56 papers were used to write the present paper. The results of this study organized into four categories: individual barriers (knowledge of healthcare professionals, their attitudes and beliefs, their inadequate experiences, and uncertainty of the diagnosis), interpersonal barriers (fear of disconnecting therapeutic relationships and violation of privacy and secrecy principles), organizational barriers (poor communication and weak legal processes for reporting), and situational barriers (victims' characteristics and available evidence). Given the reporting of child abuse by healthcare professionals is affected by multiple factors such as individual, interpersonal, organizational, and situational factors, so considering a comprehensive and collaborative program for this public problem in all levels is important.