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Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia

Child maltreatment, especially during health crises, is a major public health issue transcending cultural, social, and racial contexts. We assessed the sociodemographic and related risk factors associated with the types and rates of child maltreatment. We also assessed the economic, social, and envi...

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Autores principales: Alenezi, Shuliweeh, Alnamnakani, Mahdi A., Temsah, Mohamad-Hani, Murshid, Rozan, Alfahad, Fahad, Alqurashi, Haitham, Alonazy, Hana, Alothman, Mohamad, Aleissa, Majid
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8947060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35327683
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9030312
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author Alenezi, Shuliweeh
Alnamnakani, Mahdi A.
Temsah, Mohamad-Hani
Murshid, Rozan
Alfahad, Fahad
Alqurashi, Haitham
Alonazy, Hana
Alothman, Mohamad
Aleissa, Majid
author_facet Alenezi, Shuliweeh
Alnamnakani, Mahdi A.
Temsah, Mohamad-Hani
Murshid, Rozan
Alfahad, Fahad
Alqurashi, Haitham
Alonazy, Hana
Alothman, Mohamad
Aleissa, Majid
author_sort Alenezi, Shuliweeh
collection PubMed
description Child maltreatment, especially during health crises, is a major public health issue transcending cultural, social, and racial contexts. We assessed the sociodemographic and related risk factors associated with the types and rates of child maltreatment. We also assessed the economic, social, and environmental characteristics of child maltreatment victims and their perpetrators, as they were reported to the Saudi National Family Safety Program (NFSP), with consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact. A secondary data analysis of a retrospective review was conducted to compare types and rates before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, utilizing descriptive and multivariate analyses on anonymized data from the NFSP. According to a predetermined list of relevant risk factors for child maltreatment outlined by the NFSP, these anonymized data were obtained and analyzed with no exclusion criteria (n = 1304). The findings showed that a child’s age correlated significantly and positively with their odds of being physically maltreated; as a child’s age increased by one year, on average, their corresponding predicted odds of being physically maltreatment tended to rise by a factor equal to 7.6% (p < 0.001). Neglected children, compared to those who had not been previously neglected, were predicted to be almost twice (2.23 times more) as likely to be victims of physical maltreatment on average (p < 0.001). Children were notably more likely to experience sexual abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic than those exposed to abuse during the period before (1.69 times). The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with significantly lower odds of physical child maltreatment (47.7% less). This study found no statistically significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s odds of being emotionally maltreated (p = 0.169). These findings support the existence of specific risk factors for child maltreatment for both child victims and perpetrators. They also attest to the significant differences between different types of maltreatment. A systematic, proactive system is needed to screen and document child maltreatment with a higher degree of integration with community reporting systems.
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spelling pubmed-89470602022-03-25 Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia Alenezi, Shuliweeh Alnamnakani, Mahdi A. Temsah, Mohamad-Hani Murshid, Rozan Alfahad, Fahad Alqurashi, Haitham Alonazy, Hana Alothman, Mohamad Aleissa, Majid Children (Basel) Article Child maltreatment, especially during health crises, is a major public health issue transcending cultural, social, and racial contexts. We assessed the sociodemographic and related risk factors associated with the types and rates of child maltreatment. We also assessed the economic, social, and environmental characteristics of child maltreatment victims and their perpetrators, as they were reported to the Saudi National Family Safety Program (NFSP), with consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact. A secondary data analysis of a retrospective review was conducted to compare types and rates before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, utilizing descriptive and multivariate analyses on anonymized data from the NFSP. According to a predetermined list of relevant risk factors for child maltreatment outlined by the NFSP, these anonymized data were obtained and analyzed with no exclusion criteria (n = 1304). The findings showed that a child’s age correlated significantly and positively with their odds of being physically maltreated; as a child’s age increased by one year, on average, their corresponding predicted odds of being physically maltreatment tended to rise by a factor equal to 7.6% (p < 0.001). Neglected children, compared to those who had not been previously neglected, were predicted to be almost twice (2.23 times more) as likely to be victims of physical maltreatment on average (p < 0.001). Children were notably more likely to experience sexual abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic than those exposed to abuse during the period before (1.69 times). The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with significantly lower odds of physical child maltreatment (47.7% less). This study found no statistically significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s odds of being emotionally maltreated (p = 0.169). These findings support the existence of specific risk factors for child maltreatment for both child victims and perpetrators. They also attest to the significant differences between different types of maltreatment. A systematic, proactive system is needed to screen and document child maltreatment with a higher degree of integration with community reporting systems. MDPI 2022-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8947060/ /pubmed/35327683 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9030312 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Alenezi, Shuliweeh
Alnamnakani, Mahdi A.
Temsah, Mohamad-Hani
Murshid, Rozan
Alfahad, Fahad
Alqurashi, Haitham
Alonazy, Hana
Alothman, Mohamad
Aleissa, Majid
Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
title Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
title_full Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
title_short Epidemiology of Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
title_sort epidemiology of child maltreatment during the covid-19 pandemic in saudi arabia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8947060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35327683
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9030312
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