Epidemiology and geographical distribution of child abuse in Hong Kong

Abstract

Objectives: The objectives of this study are 1) To study the epidemiology and geographical distribution of child abuse in Hong Kong. 2) To study the district differences in co-morbidities of child abuse.

Methods: Children under 19 years old with diagnostic codes for child abuse and child maltreatment from 1st January 2001 to 31st December 2010 were retrieved from Hospital Authority database. Demographics, hospital admission data and co-morbidities diagnosis were retrieved. The data were further analyzed according to districts of Hong Kong.

Results: A total of 8055 episodes of child abuse were retrieved. 4241 (52.7%) were female and 3814 (47.3%) were male. There was a significant increasing trend of child abuse steadily in the whole territory over the study period. There were significant differences in the number of child abuse cases among different districts (p = 0.0038). Yuen Long, followed by Tuen Mun, constituted the highest numbers of child abuse cases, with 970 cases (12%) and 896 cases (11.1%) identified respectively. The mean age of onset of child abuse was 8.5 years old, while the mean number of hospital admission was 2.3 episodes during the study period. For length of hospital stay, the overall mean was 6.5 days. There was no significant difference among the clusters. The overall rate of suicidal attempt was 1.6%. The rate of suicidal attempt in New Territory west cluster (2.5%) was 2.8 times of that of Hong Kong west cluster (0.9%) (p<0.0001). The number of injury diagnosis, mental health problem, developmental delay, behavioral problem, antisocial or conduct problem, were also significantly different among different clusters. (p<0.05).

Conclusion: There was a significant increasing trend of child abuse in the past decade in Hong Kong. In addition, the present study demonstrated a significant geographical variation in the number of child abuse cases as well as their associated co-morbidities. The identification of areas with higher rates of child abuse and associated co-morbidities poses important implication on service planning and policy making.