Il ruolo dell'infermiere professionale nella diagnosi di abuso sui minori: un primo importante passo verso l'infermiere forense in Italia

Child abuse and neglect represent one of the most important phenomenon in modern society. Even though some startling estimation have been presented in some countries such as in Italy, it is stated that trhis phenomenon is mainly ignored or underrated by healthy workers, who have the responsibility to detect this horrible crime. Nurses have an important part to play as they are often the firts to see the presumed child abused and theri family. Nevertheless in certain form of child abuse and neglect that are hard to detect they need to develop informed and heightened awareness if the signs of abuse. Forensic nursing is an emerging new discipline which nurse can fulfil a role for some medico-legal problem. Many european countries have added yet specific forensic scinece knowledge to nursing curriculum. We think that the development of forensic nursing training in Italy can help the society to detect the horrible phenomenon of child abuse and neglect.