Child Maltreatment Reports during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

OpenAlex İngilizce

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a threat to the safety of children and families. This scoping review synthesized the findings about the prevalence of child maltreatment (CM) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The PRISMA guidelines were followed in the current study. According to most of the studies (85,7%) involving units where CM reports are received, the reporting rates of CM have decreased. However, the rate of traumatic injury or hospitalization due to physical abuse has increased. Community-based studies involving parents and survey studies show an increase in CM rates excluding sexual abuse. The decrease in CM rates ranged from 8% to 55,3%, while the increase rates ranged from 1,12% to 33,3%. As another finding, parental/ socioeconomic characteristics (e.g., unemployment, parenting stress) increased the risk of CM. Hence, mental health and social work professionals who work with children have a critical responsibility to identify children at risk and to reveal the full extent of CM.