Annotated Bibliography on Child Abuse: Long-Term Health Consequences

Introduction

Child abuse is prone to causing serious health effects on the individuals' life cycle. The consequences of abuse can be in the form of psychological, physical, or behavioral or either combination of the three (Henry et al., 2018). Scholarly researchers learned that health issues related to child abuse could stem from emotional, sexual, and physical abuse that they experience at any point in life. The child is likely to develop arthritis, obesity, personality disorder, mood, depression, and heart disease. Nonetheless, the consequences of child abuse do not only stop at the childhood stage; individuals assaulted in their minor age are most likely to develop health issues in their adulthood. For example, girls who experienced physical and sexual abuses are at a high risk of developing stroke, heart attack, and heart disease when they become adults according to research. The paper depicts on health effects of child abuse.

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In 2013, a study completed by Pediatrics and published online revealed that 35 percent of children subjected to harsh physical punishment were at risk of developing arthritis as 24 percent becoming obese when adults (Ayano et al., 2017). Children who grew up in harsh physical punishment were at risk of developing cardiovascular disease in their older age. Also, the research found out that children who are subjected to abuse are likely to acquire mood disorders, anxiety, violent, alcoholics, and personality disorder. Malnutrition is the other health effect likely to develop from child abuse as the child loses appetite due to developed fear. Some of the effects related to child abuse could be mild, but others severe to cause permanent damages to the child. Moreover, the health issues developed might be treatable through counseling and medical attention, but others may be irreversible, forcing the victims to suffer for the rest of their lives.

Literature Review

Child abuse is commonly integrated with sexual assault, maltreatment, emotional abuse, neglect, and harsh punishments. The research completed by the United States in 2013 sampling a population size of 2,869 people aged 18 to 24 outlined that health effect was the primary challenges of child abuse (Fortson et al., 2016). Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) devices were used to collect responses from the sampled size through which the data was kept confidential. The questions asked were focused on: physical care, family relationships, physical, verbal and violent treatment, discrimination and bullying, psychological and emotional treatment as well as a sexual experience.

Figure 1: Table presentation of findings on child maltreatment in the United States (Fortson et al., 2016).

Experience Literature

Physical abuse Of the 2,869 sampled populations, 7% of the children were examined as severely abused physically by parents and close people in their surroundings. In the category, violence was repeatedly experienced with lasting painful injuries. 14% of the children experienced intermediate abuse, while 3% were grouped as a cause for concern. The intermediate group experienced violence though irregularly happened. In the survey, more girls estimated at 75% experienced severe physical abuse as compared to their male counterparts who suffered most form intermediate abuse. Also, the researchers determined that 78% of the violence happened within the homestead.

Emotional abuse The area is defined as the least covered in the past studies, and the literature review is almost non-existence. It is a broad area of concern on determining the effect of damage caused by violent and child abuse due to the distinct behavioral factors involved. However, 6% of the sample population admitted to having experienced emotional challenges from child abuse. A psychological control system was incorporate measuring and each participant in the 6 percent scores less than 4 out of 7 dimensions.

Sexual abuse 1% of the population recorded sexual abuse most of the violations committed by parents/careers. The majority of the parental side involved fathers or stepfathers, while distance relatives abused 3% of the victims. Sexual abuse was relatively high from people known by the child but unrelated approximately at11%. Abuse by strangers was reported at 5% of the total population size abused sexually.

Neglect 6% of the population admitted to having experienced absence physical care being severe neglect. 9% and 2% intermediate and cause for concern, respectively. 5% of the population reported a lack of supervision being a serious count, 12% and 3% intermediate, and cause for concern respectfully (Fortson et al., 2016).

The finding previous research shows that 1 out of 7 children across the United States would experience severe abuse during their childhood. According to Misheva, Webbink, and Martin (2017), child abuse is a global problem as the statistics show that 42% of children population across the world is subjected to health effects resulted from abuse. Henry et al. (2018) state that it is necessary to look at the US Department of Justice report on child affairs that reported over 3 million cases of child abuse recorded with police departments across the wide every year. According to Henry et al. (2018), medical reports were necessary to help identify the degree of injury caused by the abuse to assist in comparing the effects of child abuse against the individuals' life. Child maltreatment is costly, according to Derakhshanpour et al. (2017). In his research, Derakhshanpour et al. (2017) presented the figure below to illustrate the health effect of child abuse.

Figure 2: Health effect of child abuse presented by Derakhshanpour et al. (2018).

Ayano et al. (2017) assert that children subjected to neglect and abuse may suffer physical injuries such as bruises, cuts, or broken bones while in the tender age as well as a psychological and emotional disorder such as socio-emotional challenges. In the long-run, most of the abused children develop resistant traits to abuse and are likely to pass it on to the future generation assaulting their young ones (Misheva, Webbink and Martin, 2017).

Annotated Bibliography

Fortson, B., Klevens, J., Merrick, M., Gilbert, L. & Alexander, S. (2016). Preventing child abuse and neglect: A technical package for policy, norm, and programmatic activities: Atlanta, GA: Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/fastfact.html

The article states that child abuse and health problem caused encompasses all types of neglect and assault made against children. Among the people responsible for child abuse are those dedicated to custodian roles (teacher, clergy, and coach) or parental guidance, including (father, mother, and caregiver). The authors in the article articulate that four common types of child abuse significantly affect the individuals' health placed as follows: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and child neglect. Fortson et al. (2016) assert that 1 out of 7 children experience child abuse every year, and the figure might be underestimated. According to the article, children living in poverty are more likely to experience child abuse as compared to their peers in well-off families. The authors of the report assert that children living with adverse abuse experience are at the risk of attaining health challenges in the long-run if left unattended. Among the health risks include future alcoholics, perpetrators, and victimization, as well as delayed brain development.

Afifi, O. T., MacMillan, L. H., Boyle, M., Cheung, K., Taillieu, T., Turner, S. & Sareen, J. (2016). Health Reports: Child abuse and physical health in adulthood: Statistics Canada. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2016003/article/14339-eng.htm

According to the article, child abuse is having adverse life-long challenges. The authors argue that 32% of the sampled population in Canada had experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, or exposure to intimate violence while children. Although numerous studies have been conducted about child maltreatment, little is written about the consequences of child abuse on physical health (Afifi et al. (2016). The article presents a current analysis of child abuse, and health complications developed, addressing most of the left gaps in previous research. The completed survey based on data collected from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS-2012) in comparison to the Statistics Canada cross-sectional survey. The CAPI devices were used in completing the research where 79.8% and 68.9% representing CCHS-2012 and Statistics Canada respectively admitted to having experienced physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in their childhood. In this article, child abuse is increasingly high in the family settings followed by distance relatives and least experienced from people not known or mate before.

Christian, W. C. & Committee, (2015). The Evaluation of suspected child physical abuse: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Vol. 135(5), 1337-1354; doi: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-0356

The report depicts that every year, Child Protective Services (CPS) investigates approximately 2million cases of child abuse in the United States, with 18% of the reports involving physical assault. The report claims that over 650,000 children investigated are realized to be victims of maltreatment, with nearly 1500 deaths related to child abuse annually. The majority of the deaths estimated to 80% occur to children under the age of 4 years. Also, the report by Christian and Committee (2015) articulates that state laws are not clear on defining child abuse and physical assault, giving accused person chances to get away with the mistakes committed before the court of justice. The report recommends for proper guidance and regulations formulated by the federal government to mitigate corporal punishments in learning institutions. Pediatrics argues it is difficult to differentiate between corporal punishment and discipline with respect to child abuse. Christian Committee report presents that child abuse is a public health problem that comes with lifelong challenges in individuals' health conditions.

De Los, R., Augenstein, T., Wang, M., Thomas, S., Drabick, D., Burgers, D. & Rabinowitz, J. (2015). The validity of the multi-informant approach to assessing the child and adolescent mental health: PubMed.Gov. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25915035

The authors in the article assert that children in the adolescent stage may display mental health concerns. The article looks in detail the implication of child abuse as presented in the clinical records to determine the extent of health damages experienced by victims. De Los et al. (2015) state that previous studies outlined that the magnitude of physical abuse on children's health damage ranged from low-to-moderate. However, in their findings, the researcher demonstrated that currently, physical maltreatment is increasingly the leading health damage to children under the age of 12 with a large number of victims coming from low-income holders' homes as compared to wealthy families. The article presents that child abuse has led to individuals developing chronic health issues in adulthood, including diabetes, lung cancer, malnutrition, heart attack, vision problems, arthritis, and back illness. According to De Los et al. (2015), the developed condition is established from the acquired characters by the victims of child abuse when growing up as a consolation aspect of life.