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The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new threat to child health and safety. Some studies suggest that social isolation and economic stress have exacerbated child abuse and neglect, whereas other studies argue that orders to stay at home are likely to promote parent–child relationships dur...

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Autores principales: Long, Mengqing, Huang, Jia, Peng, Yishun, Mai, Yawen, Yuan, Xian, Yang, Xinhua
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8954178/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35329040
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063350
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author Long, Mengqing
Huang, Jia
Peng, Yishun
Mai, Yawen
Yuan, Xian
Yang, Xinhua
author_facet Long, Mengqing
Huang, Jia
Peng, Yishun
Mai, Yawen
Yuan, Xian
Yang, Xinhua
author_sort Long, Mengqing
collection PubMed
description Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new threat to child health and safety. Some studies suggest that social isolation and economic stress have exacerbated child abuse and neglect, whereas other studies argue that orders to stay at home are likely to promote parent–child relationships during this stressful time. Due to a lack of prospective studies including before–during–after lockdown assessments, the impacts of lockdown measures on child maltreatment are unclear. Methods: This study retrospectively investigated child maltreatment of 2821 Chinese children and adolescents from 12 to 18 (female, 59%) before, during and after lockdown, and identified risk factors. Potential predictors including socio-economic and individual mental health status were collected. Results: During Chinese lockdown, children and adolescents reported that the proportions of decrease (range 18–47.5%) in emotional abuse and neglect, physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and witnessing domestic violence were greater than that of increase (range 5.1–9.1%). Compared with before lockdown (1.6%), the prevalence of sexual abuse significantly increased 8 months (2.9%) after the lifting of lockdown (p = 0.002). Being male, suffering from depression, state anhedonia, and experiencing psychotic symptoms at baseline were associated with increased sexual abuse after lockdown. Conclusions: The impact of lockdown on child maltreatment was beneficial in the short-term but detrimental in the long-term in China.
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spelling pubmed-89541782022-03-26 The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment Long, Mengqing Huang, Jia Peng, Yishun Mai, Yawen Yuan, Xian Yang, Xinhua Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new threat to child health and safety. Some studies suggest that social isolation and economic stress have exacerbated child abuse and neglect, whereas other studies argue that orders to stay at home are likely to promote parent–child relationships during this stressful time. Due to a lack of prospective studies including before–during–after lockdown assessments, the impacts of lockdown measures on child maltreatment are unclear. Methods: This study retrospectively investigated child maltreatment of 2821 Chinese children and adolescents from 12 to 18 (female, 59%) before, during and after lockdown, and identified risk factors. Potential predictors including socio-economic and individual mental health status were collected. Results: During Chinese lockdown, children and adolescents reported that the proportions of decrease (range 18–47.5%) in emotional abuse and neglect, physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and witnessing domestic violence were greater than that of increase (range 5.1–9.1%). Compared with before lockdown (1.6%), the prevalence of sexual abuse significantly increased 8 months (2.9%) after the lifting of lockdown (p = 0.002). Being male, suffering from depression, state anhedonia, and experiencing psychotic symptoms at baseline were associated with increased sexual abuse after lockdown. Conclusions: The impact of lockdown on child maltreatment was beneficial in the short-term but detrimental in the long-term in China. MDPI 2022-03-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8954178/ /pubmed/35329040 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063350 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
Long, Mengqing
Huang, Jia
Peng, Yishun
Mai, Yawen
Yuan, Xian
Yang, Xinhua
The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment
title The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment
title_full The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment
title_fullStr The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment
title_full_unstemmed The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment
title_short The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment
title_sort short- and long-term impact of covid-19 lockdown on child maltreatment
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8954178/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35329040
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063350
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