Exploring Prevalence of Child Abuse: Use of ICAST-Retrospective Instrument with the First Year Medical Students in a University.

Objective: This study determined the prevalence of child abuse in first year medical students in a Turkish university using the ICAST-R, as well as the relationships between sociodemographic data and abuse. Methods: First-year medical students in a Turkish university have been surveyed between 15th-30th June 2012, using ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool-Retrospective Version (ICAST-R) and a questionnaire to collect sociodemographic data. Data analysis was performed with SPSS 15.0. Results: This study was included 192 students, 56.8% female and 43.2% male. Physical, emotional and sexual abuses were found in 14.6%; 32.3%; and 8.9% of participants, respectively. No significant relation between gender and emotional abuse was found (p= 0.775), whereas both physical and sexual abuse were more common in males (p= 0.04; p= 0.018 respectively). There was a statistically significant relation between emotional abuse and parental separation (p= 0,014). Conclusions: Abuse is not rare among the medical student participants, and several preventable factors could worsen it. The findings have implications on how medical students are taught about these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]