Epidemiologic Evaluation of Child Abuse and Neglect in School-Aged Children of Qazvin Province, Iran

OBJECTIVE This study was carried out to detect the prevalence of child abuse in three domains of physical, psychological and neglect among elementary school aged children of Qazvin Province, Iran. METHODS In this descriptive-analytic and cross-sectional study, 1028 elementary school aged children of Qazvin Province selected through multistage cluster sampling were assessed for child abuse in all domains, except for sexual abuse through a researcher-made questionnaire. The questionnaire was standardized for validity and reliability. Gathered data was statistically analyzed and P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. FINDINGS Out of 1028 studied children, including 540 (52.5%) boys and 488 (47.5%) girls 679 (66.05%) cases declared at least one type of child abuse. The number of positive cases for each domain of emotional, physical and neglect was 618 (60.1%), 360 (35%) and 394 (38.3%) respectively. No significance was seen regarding the gender and/or regions of living in any of the domains and total prevalence. CONCLUSION Regarding the results of this study which showed a prevalence rate of 66% for child abuse; and since there are strong association between child maltreatment and its impacts in juvenile and adulthood periods in the forms of offending, mental health concerns such as suicide and homicide, substance abuse, school failure, employment difficulties, teenage pregnancy, adult attachment difficulties, family violence, intergenerational violence and so on, appropriate education to the parents, and the punishment laws for child abuse is recommended.