COMMENTARY Commentary on Tingberg B, Bredlo ¨ v B & Ygge B-M (2008) Nurses’ experience in clinical encounters with children experiencing abuse and their parents. Journal of Clinical Nursing 17, 2718–2724 Jo Corlett and Julie Taylor Introduction Tingberg et al.’s (2008) study provides an interesting application of the critical incident technique in Sweden to highlight nurses’ experiences of caring for child abuse victims. The results highlight issues similar to those in the UK: the need for information sharing across different agencies; the reluctance of staff to instigate formal child protection procedures due to a lack of confidence in their ability to detect child abuse accurately and a lack of clear guidelines regarding the procedures to be adopted in a case of suspected child abuse. Significant progress has been made in the UK in recent years as a result of highly publicised cases such as Victoria Climbie ´ (Lord Laming 2003) and Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells (Bichard 2004), which highlighted the need for more open and better co-ordinated information collection and sharing. The resulting reform of children’s services under the Every Child Matters initiative (Department for Education and Skills 2004) and embedded within the Children Act (UK Government 2004) and National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services (Department of Health 2004b) is beginning to have an impact, although much work remains to be done. Nurses, midwives and health visitors have a crucial role in the safeguarding children agenda and we are pleased to see our Swedish colleagues drawing attention to these important debates. We would wish to offer two challenges to their study to extend the debate. First, we question some of the assumptions and conflations made; second, we seek clarification around some of the study findings and recommendations. Assumptions and conflations Tingberg et al. seem to make several assumptions about current understandings of child abuse. First, the portrayal of child abuse and neglect (CAN) as a medical diagnosis with medical sequelae (morbidity and mortality) contrasts with contemporary views that locate CAN in an ecological spectrum affecting, particularly, psychosocial development. Nurses and others should not need to adopt a medicalised view of CAN to know that child protection is everyone’s business (Scottish Executive 2002). Second, the indictment towards a model of predicting child abuse within such a model also needs careful consideration and does not sit comfortably within either the current evidence base, nor within an ethical framework of care (Taylor et al. 2008). There is much encouraging work on holistic and rigorous assessment of children’s needs (see for example Department of Health 2004a), but this is not the same as the minefield of prediction: conflating the two is potentially dangerous. Third, children from disadvantaged families can and do grow up normally and do not all experience child abuse. What research shows is pivotal is the nurturing environ- ment provided by parents (Dubowitz & Bennett 2007, Sibert et al. 2007). Children from affluent backgrounds can be equally abused and it is not only disadvantaged parents who experience feelings of frustration and inability to cope. Child abuse occurs across all social classes (Browne & Hamilton-Giachritsis 2007). Whilst the link between disad- vantage and parenting styles is well established (Taylor et al. 2000), Tingberg et al. seem to suggest that disadvan- taged parents are the only ones to abuse their children; this is oversimplifying an extremely complex issue. Authors: Jo Corlett, BA, MSc, PhD, RGN, RNT, Programme Manager (Postgraduate), School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK; Julie Taylor, MSc, PhD, RGN, Professor of Family Health, Head of Division: Research and Postgraduate Studies, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK Correspondence: Jo Corlett, Programme Manager, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Dundee, 11 Airlie Place, Dundee DD1 4HJ, UK. Telephone: +44 1382 388532. E-mail: j.f.corlett@dundee.ac.uk 3202 Ó 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18, 3202–3204 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2009.02808.x