Citation

Jessee SA. ASDC J. Dent. Child. 1995; 62(4): 245-249.

Affiliation

Department of General Dentistry, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston-Dental Branch, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, American Society of Dentistry for Children)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7593881

Abstract

The incidence of physical injury to the head, face, mouth, and neck of 266 suspected cases of child abuse was studied at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas, from January 1993 through December 1994. While there was an even distribution of physical abuse by gender, 74.8 percent of the children were under the age of three. A hospital physician performed every examination. The most frequently occurring injury was contusion or ecchymosis of soft tissue, while the face was the part of the body injured most often. Although 66.2 percent of the children reviewed had some type of injury to the head, face, mouth, or neck, only seven cases (2.6 percent) of intraoral injury were mentioned. These results point out the need for dentists to become active participants on multidisciplinary child maltreatment teams.

Language: en