Assessment of Paediatric Forensic Cases Under the Age of 18 Who Presented to the Emergency Clinic: The Case of Kilis, a Border City with Syria

Abstract

Aim: This study was conducted to determine the paediatric forensic cases under the age of 18 from of the year of the outbreak of war. Desing and Methods: The population of the study included 16,970 people under the age of 18, who were accepted as forensic cases among 88,052 cases, who presented to the emergency department of Kilis State Hospital between January 2011 and November 2019. The application time of the patients, their nationality, age, gender, their types of application to the emergency department, the event causing the forensic case, and the follow-up and treatment methods in the emergency department were recorded on the standard data entry form. Results: Among all the paediatric forensic cases, it was determined that 52.0% were Syrian, 70.8% were boys, 30.0% were in the age range of 11 and 15 years and 20.5% had an outpatient treatment. Conclusions: In this study, although juvenile forensic rates are consistent with the literature, the higher forensic cases of Syrian nationality was determined as a striking result. Practice Implications: Today, considering extraordinary situations such as wars and armed conflicts, more refugees may benefit from Turkish healthcare services in the in the forthcoming periods and it is important for community health to conduct studies in this field. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.