A comparison of abuse/violence cases against children and adolescents before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic: An integrative review

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated stress in the economic, emotional and psychological spheres of social structures, especially in families. Combined with measures taken to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2, these factors favor an increase in the incidence of cases of abuse/violence against children and adolescents. Through an integrative review, verify if after the establishment of lockdown periods, there was an increase in abuse/violence against children and adolescents compared to the pre-pandemic period. The bibliographic survey was carried out by online research in the Virtual Health Library, with the descriptors: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Child Abuse, Child and Adolescent. The search also used the Boolean operator AND. The Rayyan tool was used to filter and select the articles. From 556 initial articles, ten articles were selected for the construction of the integrative review. Most articles showed a reduction in abuse/violence cases, reflecting underreporting, underdetection, silencing of denouncers and evasion of health systems. However, an increase within specific groups was observed in some articles, as well as the severity of mistreatment was greater during the pandemic.