Prevalence of child abuse in Khorramabad junior high school students, 2012

Child abuse is a global problem and occurs in a variety of forms and is deeply rooted in cultural, economic and social practices. Child abuse is a behaviour which causes physical, psychological, emotional or sexual abuses, consequentlylead to damage of children,s health, peace of mind and education. Based on these considerations, the present study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of child abuse among junior high school students of Khoramabad in 2012. In this cross sectional study, 907 junior high school students randomly selected. Data collection tool was a multiple questionnaire incloding child and parents’ demographic information, and a physical emotional abuse and neglect questionnaire. It,s validity and reliability was done by content validity and Test re test. Data were analysed using SPSS v. 19. The findings of this study showed that average age of the cases was 13.36±1.04 and 5.4% of them were always under physical abuse and the most physical abuse was slap on the face, 7.3% emotional abuse and 5.5% neglect. Statistical test showed a significant relation between abuses and parents, educational level, job, addiction and divorce. Results showed that child abuse is common among families, therefore, monitoring of children, ratification of rules supporting children, planing and administration of preventive educational programs can be effective to reduce child abuse.