Studying the Role of Parents’ Quality of Life and Job Satisfaction on Misconduct of an Abused Child

The phenomenon of child abuse covers a wide spectrum with different intensities in various societies. Child abuse is any interaction that results in actual harm and is largely under the control of the parent or a powerful or trusted guardian of the child. Child abuse and neglect are the most common and complex psychosocial issues in society. Adolescents who have been abused during childhood are at high risk for developing a wide range of psychiatric problems, including depression, anxiety, suicide, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Child abuse or mistreatment and abuse of children include any harm done including physical, sexual, emotional, or neglect done by an adult. Understanding the factors that put children at risk of being misconducted or abused is critical to developing interventional strategies. Since quality of life and job satisfaction are variables affecting the rate of child abuse, in this study, we investigated the role of quality of life and job satisfaction of parents in the incidence of child abuse.

This research is a correlational study. The study population included all children up to 18 years old living in Torbat–e Heydariyeh City, Iran, in 2017. They were 146 children affiliated with the Social Emergency Department of Torbat–e Heydariyeh and reported one type of child abuse. Seventy–three of them were chosen by cluster random sampling. Out of six health centers, three centers were randomly selected. Then from families with children under 18 years old in each center, 25 families were randomly selected. The inclusion criteria for both groups were that parents were not being treated for any mental disorder, medical services and medicines were not received by parents and children, and both parents were alive. The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL–BRE) (1996) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) (Weiss et al., 1967) were used to collect data. To analyze data, we used descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (logistic regression method) via SPSS software version 23 at a significance level of 0.05.

The fitting results of the model showed that among the components of quality of life, except for the environmental health component (p=0.398), the components of physical health (p=0.024), psychological health (p=0.008), and social health (p=0.003) had an effect on the likelihood of child abuse. Also, among the components of job satisfaction, except for the promotion component (p=0.029) and organizational climate (p=0.010), the components of the payment system (p=0.662) and job type (p=0.998), leadership style (p=0.886), and physical condition (p=0.689) had no effect on child abuse probability.

According to the results of the study in examining and explaining the roots of child abuse, the quality of life and job satisfaction of parents have a very important role. Attention to the factors that lead to the attitude of the individuals about the quality of life, along with the emerging attitudes about working conditions, determines how the individual behaves in the family structure, especially towards children.