Dental therapists play a crucial role in the fight against child abuse but could do more if given extra support, a University of Otago study has found.
Study co-author and final-year bachelor of dentistry student Dhara Tilvawala said dental therapists - formerly called dental nurses - were often a child's most consistent health-care practitioner, putting them in an excellent position to detect child abuse.
This came across in the study, which involved about half (320) of New Zealand's dental therapists completing questionnaires. It showed that in the previous year, 55 of the 320 dental therapists surveyed had each suspected up to 10 cases of physical abuse, 87 suspected up to 10 cases of child neglect, and 101 suspected up to 10 cases of dental neglect.
Ms Tilvawala said abuse cases therapists reported seeing included bruises and physical signs of abuse to the head and neck area, including cigarette burns.
She noted that in physical abuse cases, 50 to 75% of injuries are to the head and neck area - the very area therapists treated.
Not all suspected cases were reported, but international studies showed New Zealand's therapists' level of reporting was comparable to rates in other countries.
Co-author and senior lecturer at the School of Dentistry Colleen Murray said the study showed dental therapists needed more support.
One of the biggest problems dental therapists faced was knowing where to report suspected cases of child maltreatment, Ms Murray said.
Other barriers to reporting shown in the study included a fear of mistakenly reporting abuse and an unfamiliarity with the signs of child abuse.
A positive result from the study was that almost two-thirds of
therapists had attended professional development courses on the topic. Potential ways of improving support for dental therapists included having better guidelines for referring suspected cases of child abuse and offering more training.
The introduction of mandatory reporting was another option that could be looked at.
