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Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and related isolation measures have substantial adverse economic, social, and psychological consequences and expose children to increased risk of violence. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on violence against c...

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Autores principales: AboKresha, Seham Ahmed, Abdelkreem, Elsayed, Ali, Rasha Abd Elhameed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8057657/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33880660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42506-021-00071-4
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author AboKresha, Seham Ahmed
Abdelkreem, Elsayed
Ali, Rasha Abd Elhameed
author_facet AboKresha, Seham Ahmed
Abdelkreem, Elsayed
Ali, Rasha Abd Elhameed
author_sort AboKresha, Seham Ahmed
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and related isolation measures have substantial adverse economic, social, and psychological consequences and expose children to increased risk of violence. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on violence against children in Egypt. METHODS: An online survey, in Arabic, was disseminated during the period from 9 to 13 April 2020, to parents of children who were up to 18 years old residing in Egypt, selected using a snowball sampling technique, during the period from 25 March to 8 April during the implementation of the nationwide compulsory isolation measures against COVID-19 (25 March to 8 April 2020). The survey covered three areas: socio-demographic data, psychological impact measured using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and violence against children during the past 2 weeks measured using a modified parent-report of a child abuse screening tool (ICAST-P) developed by the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. RESULTS: Out of 1118 completed survey responses, 90.5% of children were subjected to violent discipline, 88.7% experienced psychological aggression, and 43.2% encountered severe physical punishment. Approximately 60% of respondents reported a moderate-to-severe psychological impact (IES-R scores ≥ 33), which was associated with a higher rate of violent discipline (OR: 9.3; 95% CI: 5.37–16.027; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study in Egypt to provide evidence on the association of COVID-19 pandemic, its psychological impact, and increased rates of violence against children. Effective multilevel strategies are urgently required to protect children from violence and its catastrophic consequences during the continually evolving COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-80576572021-04-21 Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt AboKresha, Seham Ahmed Abdelkreem, Elsayed Ali, Rasha Abd Elhameed J Egypt Public Health Assoc Research BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and related isolation measures have substantial adverse economic, social, and psychological consequences and expose children to increased risk of violence. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on violence against children in Egypt. METHODS: An online survey, in Arabic, was disseminated during the period from 9 to 13 April 2020, to parents of children who were up to 18 years old residing in Egypt, selected using a snowball sampling technique, during the period from 25 March to 8 April during the implementation of the nationwide compulsory isolation measures against COVID-19 (25 March to 8 April 2020). The survey covered three areas: socio-demographic data, psychological impact measured using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and violence against children during the past 2 weeks measured using a modified parent-report of a child abuse screening tool (ICAST-P) developed by the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. RESULTS: Out of 1118 completed survey responses, 90.5% of children were subjected to violent discipline, 88.7% experienced psychological aggression, and 43.2% encountered severe physical punishment. Approximately 60% of respondents reported a moderate-to-severe psychological impact (IES-R scores ≥ 33), which was associated with a higher rate of violent discipline (OR: 9.3; 95% CI: 5.37–16.027; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study in Egypt to provide evidence on the association of COVID-19 pandemic, its psychological impact, and increased rates of violence against children. Effective multilevel strategies are urgently required to protect children from violence and its catastrophic consequences during the continually evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8057657/ /pubmed/33880660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42506-021-00071-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Research
AboKresha, Seham Ahmed
Abdelkreem, Elsayed
Ali, Rasha Abd Elhameed
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt
title Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt
title_full Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt
title_fullStr Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt
title_full_unstemmed Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt
title_short Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in Egypt
title_sort impact of covid-19 pandemic and related isolation measures on violence against children in egypt
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8057657/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33880660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42506-021-00071-4
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