Abstract
BackgroundEmotional abuse is central to other forms of abuse. The primary objective of this paper was to estimate the prevalence of emotional abuse among pupils in basic education schools and the risk factors associated with it in Aden governorate, Yemen.MethodsFour districts were randomly selected from across the governorate of Aden, 2 schools were selected at random in each district, and then 1066 pupils were randomly selected from the 8 schools. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences ver.15. Mean, standard deviation and chi square were used for descriptive statistics. Univariate and Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to examine the associations between emotional abuse with pupils/parents characteristics.ResultsPupils reported high rates of emotional abuse 55.2% at least once in their school lifetime. Male pupils had higher prevalence of emotional abuse 72.6% than females 26.1%. Teachers constituted the highest proportion of perpetrators 45.6%. Odds Ratio (95% confidence interval) showed statistically significant association between emotional abuse and pupils' gender, family type and father education: 9.94 (7.19-13.74), 1.40 (1.02-1.91), .58 (.39-.86) respectively.ConclusionEmotional child abuse was highly prevalent in pupils in basic school education. Pupils' gender, family type and father education were the main risk factors associated with emotional abuse.
Highlights
Emotional abuse is central to other forms of abuse
Teachers occupied the higher proportion of being responsible for emotional abuse 45.6%, followed distantly by the administrative staff 5.0%
The most common emotional abuse act reported by pupils was shouting 48.1%, the most common emotional abuse acts were calling names 36.1% and threatening to give bad marks 31.9%
Summary
Emotional abuse is central to other forms of abuse. Emotional abuse may be the most prevalent type of child abuse; it is the most hidden, underreported, and least studied type of abuse [1,2]. Literature on emotional abuse is limited, which could be attributed to the fact that it is the most difficult form of abuse to research, because of lack of a consistent definition, detect, assess, and substantiate [2]. High prevalence of emotional child abuse was reported from India, United States, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Cyprus [11,12,13,14,15]. The study from India found that 47.9% of surveyed boys and 52.1% of girls had experienced emotional abuse in schools [11]
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