This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Clinical features

Authoring team

The features of physical abuse may be nebulous, and sadly the health care professional must maintain a high index of suspicion in all children where an injury has occured.

Features include:

  • bruising
  • fractures
  • burns or scalds
  • bites
  • the child may be afraid of a certain person, or of everyone

An important feature of physical child abuse is the history. Features include:

  • inconsistent history - from one telling to the next, or from one carer to the next
  • a delay between the injury and presentation
  • an injury out of proportion to the alleged accident - for example a fall from a sofa to a carpeted floor being used to explain a skull fracture in a young child.

Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.

The content herein is provided for informational purposes and does not replace the need to apply professional clinical judgement when diagnosing or treating any medical condition. A licensed medical practitioner should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions.

Connect

Copyright 2024 Oxbridge Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of OmniaMed Communications Limited. All rights reserved. Any distribution or duplication of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. Oxbridge Solutions receives funding from advertising but maintains editorial independence.