Wells Kathryn
Community Health Services, Denver Health, Denver, CO, USA.
Pediatr Clin North Am. 2009 Apr;56(2):345-62. doi: 10.1016/j.pcl.2009.01.006.
Pediatricians and other medical providers caring for children need to be aware of the dynamics in the significant relationship between substance abuse and child maltreatment. A caregiver's use and abuse of alcohol, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other drugs place the child at risk in multiple ways. Members of the medical community need to understand these risks because the medical community plays a unique and important role in identifying and caring for these children. Substance abuse includes the abuse of legal drugs as well as the use of illegal drugs. The abuse of legal substances may be just as detrimental to parental functioning as abuse of illicit substances. Many substance abusers are also polysubstance users and the compounded effect of the abuse of multiple substances may be difficult to measure. Often other interrelated social features, such as untreated mental illness, trauma history, and domestic violence, affect these families.
照顾儿童的儿科医生和其他医疗服务提供者需要了解药物滥用与虐待儿童之间重要关系的动态情况。照顾者对酒精、大麻、海洛因、可卡因、甲基苯丙胺和其他药物的使用及滥用会使儿童面临多种风险。医学界成员需要了解这些风险，因为医学界在识别和照顾这些儿童方面发挥着独特而重要的作用。药物滥用包括对合法药物的滥用以及非法药物的使用。对合法物质的滥用可能与非法物质滥用一样对父母的功能产生不利影响。许多药物滥用者也是多种物质使用者，多种物质滥用的复合影响可能难以衡量。通常，其他相互关联的社会特征，如未治疗的精神疾病、创伤史和家庭暴力，也会影响这些家庭。
