Crossing boundaries: A pilot study of maternal attitudes about child maltreatment in nine countries

Judi Mesman; Marjolein Branger; Mi-Lan Woudstra; Rosanneke Emmen; Faramarz Asanjarani; Rodrigo Carcamo; Celia Hsiao; Cindy Mels; Bilge Selcuk; Isabel Soares; Joost van Ginkel; Lamei Wang; Melis Yavuz; Lenneke Alink

doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104257

Crossing boundaries: A pilot study of maternal attitudes about child maltreatment in nine countries

Child Abuse Negl. 2020 Jan:99:104257. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104257. Epub 2019 Nov 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Electronic address: mesmanj@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.
² Institute of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
³ Department of Counseling, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Isfahan, Iran.
⁴ University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile.
⁵ Department of Paediatrics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
⁶ Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Catholic University of Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay.
⁷ Department of Psychology, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey.
⁸ School of Psychology, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, Braga, Portugal.
⁹ Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
¹⁰ College of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen University, China.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, MEF University, Turkey.

PMID: 31743808
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104257

Abstract

Background: Definitions of child maltreatment vary widely between studies, and even more so between different cultural contexts.

Objective: In this pilot study, we examine between-country variations in maternal notions about what constitutes child maltreatment.

Participants and setting: The sample consisted of 466 mothers recruited in Chile, China, Greece, Iran, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, and Uruguay.

Methods: All mothers completed a new Q-sort measure, ranking 90 parenting behaviors linked to subtypes of maltreatment (emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and physical abuse) from least to most detrimental to child development.

Results: Between-country agreement regarding the harmfulness of the parenting behaviors was high (r = .45), but there were different patterns of reported harmfulness of subtypes of maltreatment (although driven mostly by deviating patterns in the South African sample). Further, there were significant country effects on the number and type of behaviors labeled as maltreatment (pƞ² = .15), and the number of items labeled as requiring intervention (pƞ² = .19).

Conclusions: Variations in conceptions of maltreatment need to be studied in larger more representative samples and taken into account in the assessment and treatment of child maltreatment across cultures.

Keywords: Attitudes; Child maltreatment; Culture; Mothers.

MeSH terms

Adult
Analysis of Variance
Attitude*
Child
Child Abuse* / psychology
Child Development
Cross-Cultural Comparison*
Female
Humans
Mothers* / psychology
Parenting / ethnology*
Physical Abuse
Pilot Projects