DISCIPLINARY
PRACTICES AND CHILD MALTREATMENT AMONG EGYPTIAN FAMILIES IN ISMAILIA CITY
Hassan F1,
Refaat A1, El-Sayed H2, El-Defrawi M3
Departments of Community
Medicine1, Pediatrics2, and Psychiatry3,
Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt
Objectives: The study was conducted
to find out how parents treat their children, and to determine the
prevalence of abusive behaviors among parents and its correlates with child
and family characteristics.
Methods: A household survey was
conducted for 675 randomly selected women in Ismailia city. Trained
interviewers used special questionnaire to interview selected women in
their households & privacy was insured.
Results: Data of 602 children
were eligible for analysis, 53% of them were males, with a mean age of 9.7+4.9
years. Fifty three percent of the parents included in the study used
positive corrective treatment such as verbal reasoning with their children,
while 42.5% of them used mild
or moderate physical maltreatment and 46% of them used psychological
& emotional maltreatment. Sever physical punishment (physical abuse)
was practiced regularly with 13% of the children, and it was practiced more
frequently with children aged 9-12 years (OR=3.4%, 95% CI 1.4-8). Factors
determined using psychological or emotional maltreatment and physical abuse
were: being a child difficult to take care of, being in good health, and
the previous history of the parents of being abused during their childhood
by their parents, and abused mothers by their husbands.
Conclusion: Considerable number of
parents frequently uses physical or emotional abuses in this community.
Educational program to teach parents how to deal with their children and to
establish effective parent- child interaction is needed to encourage positive
behavioral correction.