Influence of childhood abuse on implicit and explicit self-esteem among children in Sichuan / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate association between childhood abuse and self-esteem among children in Sichuan.@*Methods@#A total of 700 students aged 10-16 years from four cities of Sichuan were selected through stratified random sampling method. All the participants were investigated with Screen Questionnaire of Child Abuse(SQCA), the Self-esteem Scale (SES) and the E-Prime based Implicit-Association Test(IAT).@*Results@#The prevalence of childhood abuse in Sichuan is 11.3%(65/574). Among them, 55.4% reported one type of abuse experience, 29.2% reported two types and 15.4% reported 3 or more types of abusive experiences. The average level of explicit self-esteem for the total sample children (x〖TX-*3〗=28.92, higher than 26) was in the medium level. For children with abuse experiences, explicit (t=-2.56, P<0.05) and implicit self-esteem (t=-2.40, P<0.05) was significantly lower than average level of the total sample. Educational background of primary caregivers was positively associated with explicit self-esteem(P<0.05). Gender and childhood abuse entered in the final regression model for implicit self-esteem(F=6.11, P<0.01), and childhood abuse negatively correlated with implicit self-esteem(t=-2.83, P<0.01).@*Conclusion@#Children with abuse experiences are more likely to have low implicit self-esteem.