The Experience of Childhood Maltreatment among Emerging Adults in Colombo District, Sri Lanka: A Cross-sectional Study.

Abstract

Background: WHO defines child maltreatment as the abuse and neglect that occurs to children under 18 years of age which results in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity. As per the observational studies done on those with aged 18 to 29 is known as emerging adults who were exposed to maltreatment, show a lot of psychological and social issues all around the world. There is a paucity of evidence regarding the area of child maltreatment among emerging adults in Sri Lanka. Objective: To determine the experience of childhood maltreatment among emerging adults in Colombo district Methods: The descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 384 emerging adults in Colombo district using the convenience sampling method. The sample was taken from university students and students in vocational training centers in Colombo district. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Childhood maltreatment was measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) which captures the childhood experience of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical and emotional neglect. The cut-off scores were given to each subdomain to determine the abusiveness or neglect (>12=emotionally abuse, >9 = physical abuse, >7 = sexually abuse, >14 = emotionally neglect, >9 = physical neglect). Results: The majority of participants were males (n=226, 58.9%) with the mean±SD age of 23±3 years. Of them, 67.2% (n=258) of emerging adults revealed childhood experiences of maltreatment, and most of the emerging adults were confronted with physical neglect (n=344, 89.6%), and physical abuse (n=193, 50.3%) in their childhood. Apart from that 19% (n=73) of sexual abuse, 39.1% (n=150) of emotional abuse, and 18.2% (n=70) of emotional neglect emerging adults were reported in Colombo district. Conclusion: The study concluded that one out of every three emerging adults in Colombo was victimized to childhood maltreatment. Hence, all the government and non-government authorities need to develop new strategies to prevent child maltreatment.