A Retrospective Survey of Childhood Corporal Punishment and Emotional Maltreatment by Their Parents in Students

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of childhood corporal punishment and emotional maltreatment by their parents in students.Methods:A convenient sample of 528 students from a college and a technical secondary school in Hebei province were surveyed by wsing the self-administered questionnaire anonymously.Results:Overall,36.2% of students reported having been corporal punished or/and emotionally maltreated at least one time,one of eight forms of maltreatments by their parents before age of 16.The eight forms of maltreatments were hitting/kicking/pushing very hard with an open hand/fist/foot/other part of body(21.4%),beating with an object(16.1%),locking in a small place/tying with rope(2.8%),choking,burning,or stabbing with sharp object(0.4%),insulting in front of other people and trying to make the child feel bad,stupid or worthless(4.2%),forcing to give away money or possessions the child owned to other people(0.9%);being told that they wish the child had never been born,or were dead(7.2%),and threatened that they would be abandoned or banished from the house(7.2%).Compared with their peers who had no childhood parental corporal punishment or/and emotional maltreatments,the students with two or more forms of the maltreatments by their parents showed significantly higher mean scores of psychological symptoms of somatization,obsessiveness,interpersonal sensitivity,depression,anxiety,hostility,paranoid ideation and psychoticism(the total average score:(0.75±0.53)vs.(1.02±0.48),especially the factor scores of hostility(0.77±0.68)vs.(1.25±0.80),and showed significantly higher rates in suicide ideation and being drunk in the past year(5.1% vs.20.8%;22.5% vs.42.1%).Conclusions:The problem of corporal punishment and emotional maltreatment by parents is common and has a significant correlation with adolescents' mental health problems.