Child Abuse Review最新文献

The COVID-19 lockdown, implemented globally by April 2020, disrupted daily life for approximately 3 billion people, including in Ghana, where school closures and economic strain heightened family tensions and child misbehaviour. Limited research exists on Ghanaian parents' experiences managing child misbehaviour during this period. This study, grounded in Baumrind's Parenting Styles Theory, explores the types of child misbehaviour and parental disciplinary responses in urban Ghanaian households during the lockdown. A qualitative descriptive design was employed, involving in-depth telephone interviews with 59 parents from Accra and Tema, Ghana, conducted between June and November 2020. Participants, parents of children aged 10–17, were purposively sampled. Thematic analysis, guided by Braun and Clarke's Reflexive Thematic Analysis framework, was used to analyse narratives, with data saturation achieved. Eighty-five percent of parents reported child misbehaviour, including excessive eating (69%), leisure activities (59%), neglecting chores (51%) and academic disengagement (47%). Parents employed authoritarian (e.g., punishment, 31%), permissive (e.g., advising, 36%) and nonverbal strategies (e.g., ignoring, 41%) to manage behaviours. Lockdown stressors shifted parenting styles, highlighting the need for culturally relevant parenting support to promote authoritative practices in crisis contexts.

Young carers of parents with mental illness are often considered to be living in vulnerable circumstances. This study aims to gain deeper insights from the perspectives of child welfare social workers in Taiwan, focusing on their experiences and challenges and providing suggestions for improving services to better support the needs of young carers and their families affected by mental illness. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 16 child welfare social workers (13 females and 3 males), and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that child welfare social workers, when primarily focused on child safety and risk, may inadvertently overlook the specific needs of young carers. Influenced by family and cultural values, young carers are often encouraged to assume caregiving responsibilities and to conceal their parent's mental illness in order to preserve family dignity. Participants perceived these young carers as invisible and disadvantaged. To address these challenges, a family-centered approach—supported by professional collaboration and by actively listening to the voices of young carers—is essential for responding to the complex needs of both young carers and their families. The application of family systems theory to findings implies that social services should understand how parental mental illness affects the whole family unit, particularly the roles of young carers. Recommendations for service practitioners to support the needs of young carers are outlined.

Exposure to psychological maltreatment during childhood is known to result in cognitive and emotional problems in later life. There are some links in the literature between psychological maltreatment, irrational happiness beliefs, fear of happiness and hopelessness. However, a more detailed explanation of these relationships is required. In this research, serial multiple mediation analysis was performed to test the hypothetical model that addresses irrational happiness beliefs and fear of happiness as serial mediators in the relationship between childhood psychological maltreatment and hopelessness. The research sample consisted of 405 Turkish participants. The majority of participants reported that their perceived socio-economic status was at a moderate level (n = 295, 72.8%). The data were collected using the Psychological Maltreatment Questionnaire, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Irrational Happiness Beliefs Scale and the Fear of Happiness Scale. Research data were tested with conditional process analysis. The analyses revealed that irrational happiness beliefs and the fear of happiness serially mediated the relationship between childhood psychological maltreatment and hopelessness. The findings revealed that exposure to psychological maltreatment in childhood reflect on the individual cognitively and emotionally, thus driving the individual to despair. All findings were discussed and interpreted in detail, and suggestions were offered to both mental health practitioners and researchers.

The 2024 Olympic Games may be hailed as the greatest ever. But, though the Games business model may evolve, no new protections emerged for those at play. This paper explores the applicability of an integrative approach to publicly accessible data to increase the security of youth at play from all manner of abuse, including aggression, harassment and bullying. Although open source research (OSR) is a proven business intelligence strategy, it is not yet in our toolbox for safeguarding the vulnerable participants of amateur sports. In this paper, the author demonstrates the potential for an integrative prevention platform, with foundational databases, AI analytics and professional analysis to assure accountability, transparency and adherence to privacy regulations. An integrative platform can serve in better screening of hiring candidates, verifying identity and confirming credentials, monitoring sport management behaviours, educating about risks and threats and managing partnerships, all while supporting preventive action, measuring performance and reporting progress.

This study aims to explore the chain-mediated effects of difficulty in identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and depression on the relationship between psychological maltreatment and adolescent social media dependence, providing theoretical support for alleviating adolescent social media dependence. The present study obtained 2243 valid questionnaires from adolescents in China, assessing their difficulty in identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, levels of depression, experiences of psychological maltreatment, and degree of social media dependence. The data were subjected to descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and mediation effect analysis, with demographic variables such as age and gender controlled for their potential impact on the results. The findings revealed significant positive correlations between psychological maltreatment and adolescent social media dependence, difficulty describing feelings, difficulty in identifying feelings, and depression. Additionally, difficulty describing feelings, difficulty in identifying feelings, and depression were all significantly positively correlated with social media dependence. After incorporating the mediating variables, psychological maltreatment remained significantly positively correlated with adolescents' social media dependence, difficulty in identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and depression. Both difficulty in identifying feelings and depression were significantly positively correlated with adolescents' social media dependence, and significant positive correlations were also observed between difficulty in identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings and between these difficulties and depression. Notably, in the chain mediation model constructed in this study, the path from difficulty describing feelings directly to social media dependence was not statistically significant. This finding suggests that more pathways may be mediated through difficulty in identifying feelings and depression. This study provides a detailed examination of the mediating roles of difficulty describing feelings, difficulty in identifying feelings, and depression in the relationship between psychological maltreatment and adolescent social media dependence, offering a theoretical basis for preventing psychological maltreatment and intervening in the development of adolescent social media dependence and depression.

Although sports participation fosters children's well-being, it also entails risks of abuse. Research has shown that violence against child athletes is a significant issue, yet data from Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, remain scarce. This study is the first attempt to assess the prevalence of violence in Polish youth sports through a survey of undergraduate students (n = 693) who participated in organized sports during childhood. Using the Polish adaptation of the Violence Towards Athletes Questionnaire (VTAQ), the survey examined various forms of abuse perpetrated by peers, coaches, parents and other authority figures. The results revealed that 89% of respondents experienced violence in sport at least once, with peer violence being the most common (83%). Abuse by authority figures affected 72% of respondents. Psychological abuse was the most prevalent form (78%), followed by physical and sexual violence. Alarmingly, only 29% of respondents sought help after experiencing abuse. Victimization was significantly associated with self-destructive behaviours and suicide attempts. These findings underscore the urgent need for safeguarding measures in Polish youth sports, including bullying prevention, monitoring of authority figures and training for sports personnel. The article also compares Polish results with findings from international studies using the same research tool.