Prevalence of Child Abuse Among the University Students: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study in University of the Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

There is dearth of data regarding child abuse in Islamic Republic of Pakistan due to the strong taboo about discussing the child abuse. This is pioneering study aimed to providing the estimates on the prevalence of child abuse in Pakistan. This is a cross-sectional and retrospective study on the prevalence of child abuse using simple random sampling. The study was conducted using standardized International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect tool International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Child Abuse Screening Tools Retrospective version. Data were collected from 274 students of 4-year BS program in the University of the Punjab, Lahore. According to the findings, physical abuse has the highest rate 57% (46% females and 68% males) of prevalence. Emotional abuse is the second highest form of abuse with 53% prevalence rate (54% females and 53% males). Among the other forms neglect is 40% (40% females and 40% males) and 41% respondents (39% females and 44% males) disclosed being sexually abused. Most frequently reported category of the perpetrator according to the findings of this study are the parents (20%) followed by friends (16%) and teachers (14%). Single year with highest report of all forms of abuse is 12th year, and the age span with maximum occurrence of abuse is from 10 to 15 years for all forms of abuse. Microsoft Excel was used for data processing and interpretation.