Knowledge levels of members of different occupations on child abuse and neglect

Due to the fact that there are limited numbers of studies on child abuse and neglect in our country and the fact that insufficient training before and after graduation cause lack of information and experience in occupations that involve children, some cases may not be noticed.Purpose: This study was conducted to find out the knowledge levels of nurses, teachers and police who have an important role in recognizing and preventing child abuse and neglect.Methods: 220 nurses, 128 teachers and 150 police working in a town center in the North of Turkey participated in the study. A questionnaire was used to determine the knowledge levelsof the participants on children's neglect and physical and sexual abuse. The data was analyzed by SPSS package program and percentages and chisquare test was used in analyses.Results: 72.5% of the police, 65.9% of the nurses and 21.1% of the teachers stated that they had encountered child abuse and neglect. In terms of the levels of recognizing evidence of neglect in children, no statistically significant difference was found between occupational groups; however, a statistically significant difference was found between groups in terms of recognizing evidence of physical abuse.Conclusions: The results of this study showed that nurses were more successful than teachers and police in diagnosing the symptoms of physical and sexual abuse in children; however, no difference was found between the members of different occupations in terms of diagnosing signs of neglect in children

The Effects of Virtual Reality and Kaleidoscope on Pain and Fear During Blood Draw in Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: This study was carried out to determine the effect of cartoon watching with virtual reality (VR) glasses and kaleidoscope used during blood draw on the pain and fear of children. Methods: The universe of this randomized controlled study was composed of 7-12-year-old children who were admitted to blood draw unit of a hospital between January-April 2020. Data of the study were collected by using “Participant Information Form”, “Visual Analog Scale”, “Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale” and “The Children’s Fear Scale (CFS).” Results: Mean pain scores of the children in kaleidoscope and VR groups were found to be significantly lower than the ones in the control group in the study (p<0.05). Mean fear scores of the children in kaleidoscope and VR groups were significantly lower than the control group based on CFS (p<0.05). Conclusion: It was concluded that kaleidoscope and VR methods were found to be effective in alleviating pain and fear among 7-12-year-old children during blood draw

The Examination of Technological Device Usage and Sleep Habits among the Children Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective:This study was conducted to examine the technological device usage states and sleep habits of 5-12 year-old children before and during the Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Materials and Methods:It is a descriptive study. This study was conducted with the parents of 488 children who were aged between 5-12 years old and studying in a kindergarten, 3 elementary schools and 3 secondary schools between March 2021 and June 2021. Data were collected by “Descriptive Information Form” and the “Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ)” in the study. Descriptive statistics and parametric tests were used to analyze the data.Results:In the study, a statistically significant difference was found in technological device usage and times of children before and during the COVID-19 pandemic period (p<0.05). It was determined that 100% of children had sleep problems clinically. A statistically significant difference was found between the mean scores of students from the CSHQ based on the education and income states of their parents (p<0.05). Additionally, a statistically significant difference was found between the mean CSHQ scores based on the duration of child’s daily technological device usage (p<0.05).Conclusion:Longer time spent with technological devices by 5-12 year old children during the COVID-19 pandemic was found to show a negative effect on the sleep habits of the children