SOCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR CHILDREN WITH SOCIO-ECONOMIC VULNERABLE PARENTS: A TOPICAL MATTER IN PEDIATRIC HOSPITALS

Objective: to present the statistical data regarding the cases of children from families with low socio-economic status admitted to an emergency room from April 2014 to March 2016. Material and methods: A total of 79,779 patients aged between 0 and 18 years were admitted to the emergency room of a clinical pediatric emergency hospital in the north-east of Romania (42,119 during the first year, and another 37,660 during the second year). Of all these patients, over 55% were admitted to the hospital. Of the total number of hospital admissions, 505 (i.e. 263 boys and 242 girls) required social assistance. The data was obtained from the statistics department of the hospital and was processed using Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The research observed all the ethical standards, ensuring the confidentiality of personal information. Results: The number of children from rural areas is three times larger than that of children from urban areas. According to their frequency, the most numerous cases requiring counselling via a social assistant are the cases of neglect (34.65%), suicide attempts (parasuicide) through voluntary drug intoxication (17.42%), consumption of alcohol or ethnobotanical substances (13.85%) and physical abuse (10.69%). Conclusions: Children from families with low socioeconomic status and rural areas admitted to the hospital due to neglect, voluntary intoxications and physical abuse are the main reasons why the support of social workers is required in a pediatric hospital. There are no gender-related differences, with both genders requiring equal amounts of intervention from the social worker.