Question

A 10-year-old child is brought into the emergency department by her mother. The mother appears anxious but sits quietly next to her daughter in the waiting room. When called into the triage area, the mother gives a history of coming home from work to find her daughter sitting on the couch watching television. Her daughter did not go to the door to greet her or look toward her when she said hello. The mother thought the daughter’s behavior was odd because she always greeted her at the door with a hug. As she approached her daughter, she noticed that she was clutching her right arm as if in pain. The mother asked what was wrong, but the daughter remained silent. Then she said “Nothing is wrong.” The father is sleeping upstairs. The mother gives a family history of having an alcoholic husband who usually drinks himself to sleep. She said he has abused the child physically and psychologically in the past, and she brought her to the emergency room because she fears he has hurt the child. When the child is asked about the abuse she appears scared, insecure, and withdrawn.

Questions:

a. How may the nurse obtain subjective information from the child when she is reluctant to speak?

b. Given the information provided by the mother, what further assessment should the nurse conduct?

Answer 1

A-recently we have noticed child abuse many ways.even from family members once the child lose the trust it will lead to them a mental trauma and social isolation.based on the history the child may have abuse .To gather information from child first we need to make a comfortable atmosphere and create a trust on them.for that as a nurse we can use multi level approach but make sure that the confidentiality should be maintained.

To gather information we can create a comfortable atmosphere by friendly approach and provide psychological support.also arrange a child protection team and counselling expert to gather information in a good way.

B-- As a nurse nurse should do assessment on patient first ly asking history and then do the physical examination

Careful physical examination needed to make sure the evidence of abuse and also record the documents for legal purpose.take a concent before going to private part examination.