A systematic literature review of child maltreatment in China

Objective To recognize the epidemiology situation of child maltreatment among 0~17year-old children in China,and provide advices and potential solutions for child maltreatment prevention policies. Methods Domestic and internatiaonl literatures about child maltreatment from 1992 to 2012were searched to collect comprehensive valuable and representative data in China.Evaluation tools were developed according to GRADE method to assess the quality and content of the literatures. Results 84 related literatures were screened out.11 focusd on physical abuse,3focused on emotional abuse,15 focused on sex abuse and 12 focusd on neglect.The others reported different kinds of abuse at the same time.1)Physical abuse:Incidences of physical abuse were 41.2%to 67.3%in urban areas and 32.4%to 39.4%in rural areas.Measuring instruments of physical abuse used in different studies were inconsistent.2)Emotional abuse:Since there was no unified measurement of emotional abuse,results showed variety of emotional abuse incidences(10.6%-67.1%).3)Sexual abuse:Most researches focusd on sexual abuse before 16 years old used a retrospective survey method.The incidences of sexual abuse were around 10.2%to 23.0%among boys,and around 14.2%to 25.5%among girls.4)Neglect:Chinese researchers had already developed a set of urban and rural applicably Chinese Neglect Scales for different age groups since 1999.The neglect incidences were 22.4%to 32.8%among 3~17year-old urban children,and 53.7%to 54.9%among 0~6year-old rural children;incidence of neglect among rural children age 6and older was not available so far. Conclusion The issue of child maltreatment in China can not be neglected.Research on definition of child maltreatment,survey instruments,and the national level epidemiology are needed.