Child Physical Abuse and concurrence of other types of Child Abuse – associations with health and risk behaviors

Objective: To examine the associations between child physical abuse executed by a parent or caretaker and self-rated health problems/risk-taking behaviors among teenagers. Further to evaluate concurrence of other types of abuse and how these alone and in addition to child physical abuse were associated with bad health status and risk-taking behaviors. Methods: A population-based survey was carried out in 2008 among all the pupils in two different grades (15 respectively 17 years old) in Södermanland County, Sweden (N=7 262). The response rate was 81.8 %. The pupils were asked among other things about their exposure to child physical abuse, exposure to parental intimate violence, bullying and exposure to being forced to engage in sexual acts. Adjusted analyses were conducted to estimate associations between exposure and illhealth/risk-taking behaviors. Results: Child physical abuse was associated with poor health and risk-taking behaviors with adjusted Odds Ratios (OR) ranging from 1.6 to 6.2. The associations were stronger when the pupils reported repeated abuse with OR ranging from 2.0 to 13.2. Also experiencing parental intimate partner violence, bullying and being forced to engage in sexual acts was associated with poor health and risk-taking behaviors with the same graded relationship to repeated abuse. Finally there was a cumulative effect of multiple abuse in the form of being exposed to child physical abuse plus other types of abuse and the associations increased with the number of