NCJ Number
213685
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 30 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2006 Pages: 231-245
Date Published
March 2006
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of socioeconomic, familial, demographic, and household dynamic factors on the three types of child maltreatment among school children in the Kurdistan Province, Iran: physical and mental maltreatment and child neglect.
Abstract
Self-reported child maltreatment in the Kurdistan Province ranged from 80.2 percent for neglect at home to 19.6 percent for physical maltreatment. The findings have implications for intervention programs, indicating that they should target and supervise childcare practices in rural areas of Iran, including childcare practices in rural area schools. Additionally, students with poor school performance should be targeted for emotional support in schools. Risk factors for reporting child maltreatment included living in a rural area, Kurdish ethnicity, being male, being between the ages of 15 to 18 years, poor school performance, substance abuse by family members, and poor parental relationships. Importantly, characteristics of the mother were significantly associated with child maltreatment whereas characteristics of the father were not. Mental maltreatment was most commonly perpetrated at school by teachers against older adolescents who demonstrated poor school performance. Participants were 1,370 students between the ages of 11 and 18 years attending schools in both rural and urban areas who completed semistructured questionnaires regarding their experiences of physical and mental maltreatment at home and in school. Data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Study limitations include its cross-sectional design and its reliance on self-reports of maltreatment. Tables, references