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Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of Ghana
Although it has become axiomatic to quote an African proverb in discussions of child well-being, attempts to draw concrete and positive lessons from how African communities respond to and mitigate child maltreatment are comparatively few. This study tested the hypothesis that the collective value of...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
SAGE Publications
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10326358/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36843448 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605231156418 |
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author | Emery, Clifton R. Abdullah, Alhassan Jordan, Lucy P. |
author_facet | Emery, Clifton R. Abdullah, Alhassan Jordan, Lucy P. |
author_sort | Emery, Clifton R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Although it has become axiomatic to quote an African proverb in discussions of child well-being, attempts to draw concrete and positive lessons from how African communities respond to and mitigate child maltreatment are comparatively few. This study tested the hypothesis that the collective value of Abiriwatia in Ghana, which supports legitimate norms of community obligations to care for children, could be protective against physical abuse. It also examined the claim that knowledge of the familial situation of community members, generated through Abiriwatia, may help them to act to mitigate the risk of caregiver’s borderline personality disorder (BPD) features. We obtained a nationally representative sample of 1,100 female caregivers from 22 Ghanaian settlements and tested the hypotheses using multilevel models. Controlling for community-level physical abuse, living in a community with high levels of Abiriwatia childcare and community authority values is associated with lower levels of very severe physical abuse, and Abiriwatia childcare may mitigate risk from the caregiver’s BPD features. Within Ghana, encouraging positive and protective aspects of traditional Ghanaian values and working to reinstate respect for these values may have positive outcomes for children. Interventions to reduce child maltreatment should be developed with reference to Abiriwatia childcare values. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10326358 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-103263582023-07-08 Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of Ghana Emery, Clifton R. Abdullah, Alhassan Jordan, Lucy P. J Interpers Violence Original Articles Although it has become axiomatic to quote an African proverb in discussions of child well-being, attempts to draw concrete and positive lessons from how African communities respond to and mitigate child maltreatment are comparatively few. This study tested the hypothesis that the collective value of Abiriwatia in Ghana, which supports legitimate norms of community obligations to care for children, could be protective against physical abuse. It also examined the claim that knowledge of the familial situation of community members, generated through Abiriwatia, may help them to act to mitigate the risk of caregiver’s borderline personality disorder (BPD) features. We obtained a nationally representative sample of 1,100 female caregivers from 22 Ghanaian settlements and tested the hypotheses using multilevel models. Controlling for community-level physical abuse, living in a community with high levels of Abiriwatia childcare and community authority values is associated with lower levels of very severe physical abuse, and Abiriwatia childcare may mitigate risk from the caregiver’s BPD features. Within Ghana, encouraging positive and protective aspects of traditional Ghanaian values and working to reinstate respect for these values may have positive outcomes for children. Interventions to reduce child maltreatment should be developed with reference to Abiriwatia childcare values. SAGE Publications 2023-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10326358/ /pubmed/36843448 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605231156418 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Emery, Clifton R. Abdullah, Alhassan Jordan, Lucy P. Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of Ghana |
title | Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe
Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of
Ghana |
title_full | Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe
Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of
Ghana |
title_fullStr | Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe
Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of
Ghana |
title_full_unstemmed | Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe
Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of
Ghana |
title_short | Protective Community Norms and Mental Health Risks for Severe
Physical Abuse: Lessons From a Nationally Representative Study of
Ghana |
title_sort | protective community norms and mental health risks for severe
physical abuse: lessons from a nationally representative study of
ghana |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10326358/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36843448 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605231156418 |
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