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Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study

The World Health Organization (WHO), concludes that child maltreatment is a global concern calling for a multi sectoral interdisciplinary approach. School professionals, such as social workers, teachers, and health care professionals are in positions to discover and report maltreatment enabling soci...

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Autores principales: Forsner, M., Elvhage, G., Ewalds-Kvist, B. M., Lützén, K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7298689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00680-6
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author Forsner, M.
Elvhage, G.
Ewalds-Kvist, B. M.
Lützén, K.
author_facet Forsner, M.
Elvhage, G.
Ewalds-Kvist, B. M.
Lützén, K.
author_sort Forsner, M.
collection PubMed
description The World Health Organization (WHO), concludes that child maltreatment is a global concern calling for a multi sectoral interdisciplinary approach. School professionals, such as social workers, teachers, and health care professionals are in positions to discover and report maltreatment enabling social workers to intervene. However, a variety of reports reveal an evident gap between incidences and frequency of number of cases reported. A review of relevant research indicates that the problem of “not reporting” suggests that moral conflicts are activated in the process of decision-making. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of school professionals’ experiences of reporting suspected neglect and abuse to the Social Welfare Board. In a mixed method approach 32 school professionals, such as teachers, social workers, nurses and psychologists participated in interviews and responded to questionnaires. Findings from the qualitative content analysis were compared to the quantitative analysis in a meta-analysis. Moral conflicts occur when faced with making decisions about how to best deal with a child’s situation. Thoughts about the child’s best interest and relationship with his/her parents as well as the informants´ own safety, were central. The comparative meta- analysis of both data sets revealed these conflicts commence with a moral sensitivity of possible negative consequences for the child. Moral sensitivity can be viewed as a “good” personal attribute, it paradoxically might lead to moral stress despite an open ethical climate. Based on the results of this study, further research on the interpersonal aspects of dealing with moral conflicts involved in reporting suspected child abuse is indicated.
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spelling pubmed-72986892020-06-17 Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study Forsner, M. Elvhage, G. Ewalds-Kvist, B. M. Lützén, K. Child Adolesc Social Work J Article The World Health Organization (WHO), concludes that child maltreatment is a global concern calling for a multi sectoral interdisciplinary approach. School professionals, such as social workers, teachers, and health care professionals are in positions to discover and report maltreatment enabling social workers to intervene. However, a variety of reports reveal an evident gap between incidences and frequency of number of cases reported. A review of relevant research indicates that the problem of “not reporting” suggests that moral conflicts are activated in the process of decision-making. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of school professionals’ experiences of reporting suspected neglect and abuse to the Social Welfare Board. In a mixed method approach 32 school professionals, such as teachers, social workers, nurses and psychologists participated in interviews and responded to questionnaires. Findings from the qualitative content analysis were compared to the quantitative analysis in a meta-analysis. Moral conflicts occur when faced with making decisions about how to best deal with a child’s situation. Thoughts about the child’s best interest and relationship with his/her parents as well as the informants´ own safety, were central. The comparative meta- analysis of both data sets revealed these conflicts commence with a moral sensitivity of possible negative consequences for the child. Moral sensitivity can be viewed as a “good” personal attribute, it paradoxically might lead to moral stress despite an open ethical climate. Based on the results of this study, further research on the interpersonal aspects of dealing with moral conflicts involved in reporting suspected child abuse is indicated. Springer US 2020-06-16 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7298689/ /pubmed/32836722 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00680-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Forsner, M.
Elvhage, G.
Ewalds-Kvist, B. M.
Lützén, K.
Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study
title Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study
title_full Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study
title_fullStr Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study
title_full_unstemmed Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study
title_short Moral Challenges When Suspecting Abuse and Neglect in School Children: A Mixed Method Study
title_sort moral challenges when suspecting abuse and neglect in school children: a mixed method study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7298689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00680-6
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