CAN in kilos - CAN Literature's "weight" in the major data-banks

Aim: This work aims at determining how widespread and heavy is the body of child abuse literature in the major available data-bases. Materials and methods: 19 data-bases were selected. For each of them, information was collected on inventory of articles and books contained, number of articles and books obtained utilizing as filter the phrase “child abuse”, publication years’ interval, number of CAN articles per year. For every article selected information was collected on title, author/s, source and language, in a dedicated data-base (marking every reference per Db of origin in order to verify all the articles contained by more than a data-base). A descriptive analysis was carried out. Results and Conclusion: In the inventory’s amount of 53271581 items stored (articles, books and reports on every issue) from 1872 to 2004, about 1‰ contains EXACTLY the phrase “child abuse”. 5605 are all the items published before 1984, while 33 in 2004. In the 20 years period 1984-2003 43341 were the items found. The most “fruitful” year is 2001: 7% of the entire period 1984-2003. Since 1993 the articles published were always more than 2000. Among all data-bases, the overlapping area (same article) is represented nearly by a 20%. CAN issue can be found in data banks of 4 macro-areas, that were subdivided into: medical area (i.e. Medline), psychological area (i.e. PsycINFO), educational area (i.e. Eric) and other (i.e. Econlit). Through this analysis, several increases were registered in different periods of time. The greatest general increase is findable between 1992 and 2000, with a subsequent mild decrease. 96% of the literature is written in English, and 2% in French. CAN is showed to be studied in different, and somehow unexpectable, cultural environments (Geobase for instance, dealing with earth sciences) and usually non comprised in the Scientific Societies dedicated to ill-treatment. The interest noticed in the different cultural settings is unbalanced and shows peaks and dips. It seems fundamental to better connect all the different cultural sensibilities and create a more organic and coherent system in order to obtain more efficacious changes in social attitude towards children.