Although they are in a unique position to identify potential cases of child maltreatment, to date, no studies have specifically examined inpatient nurses' ability to identify factors important in determining abuse and neglect. This study addressed this gap by examining inpatient nurses' knowledge and perceptions of child maltreatment through administration of a cross-sectional survey regarding perceptions of child maltreatment to nurses (N=80) working on pediatric inpatient units at Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. Due to the limited prior research in this area, the first objective of this study was to describe the knowledge and perceptions of child maltreatment among inpatient pediatric nurses. The second objective was to examine what specific factors influence inpatient pediatric nurses' perceptions and knowledge of child maltreatment. Statistically significant differences were found between nurses who had professional experience with a substantiated case of child maltreatment and those who did not as well as nurses who felt they had received adequate training in identifying child maltreatment and those who did not. In all statistically significant vignettes, nurses who indicated they had encountered a substantiated case of child maltreatment through work rated the acts as more abusive than did nurses who had not, and nurses who indicated they received adequate training in child maltreatment identification rated the acts as less abusive than did those nurses who indicated they had not. Findings support the importance of pediatric inpatient nurses' having adequate training on identifying potential abuse and neglect, as well as reporting laws.