NURSING ROLE IN PRIMARY CARE IN ADDRESSING CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Abstract

Child sexual abuse as involving a child in a sexual activity that he or she does not fully understand, does not have the capacity to give informed consent to, or to which the child, developmentally, is not prepared and cannot consent, or which violates the laws. The general objective of the study is to identify in the literature the role of primary care nursing in the face of child sexual abuse. This is a literature review, collected in the Nursing Database (BDENF) and Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS) and SCIELO databases. The inclusion criteria to establish the sample will be: original, free and complete articles, in the Portuguese language published between 2012 and 2022, to gather evidence from the last 10 years. The research resulted in 10 articles, which showed that primary care nurses carry out notification, nursing consultation, physical examination and referral to the hospital. However, professionals still feel that they are not qualified to provide nursing care to children who are victims of sexual abuse. Finally, it is necessary to train nursing professionals to know how to deal with situations of child sexual abuse, offering workshops, courses and lectures on the subject within health environments.