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[Maltreatment of children with disabilities: Characteristics and risk factors]
1Servicios de Pediatría y Adolescencia, Instituto Aragonés de Servicios Sociales, Departamento de Sanidad, Consumo y Bienestar Social, Gobierno de Aragón, Spain. DROLIVAN@santandersupernet.com
Insights
Maltreatment of disabled children is linked to multiple family, social, and environmental risk factors, not solely the disability itself. Increased risk factors significantly elevate the likelihood of maltreatment in these vulnerable children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Child Psychology
- Social Work
Context:
- Child maltreatment is a significant public health issue.
- Children with disabilities are a vulnerable population at increased risk.
- Understanding risk factors is crucial for prevention and intervention.
Purpose:
- To determine the prevalence and characteristics of maltreated children with disabilities.
- To identify demographic features, maltreatment types, perpetrators, and associated risk factors.
- To contribute to the understanding of child maltreatment etiopathogenesis.
Summary:
- A retrospective study reviewed 1,115 maltreated children over 10 years, identifying 62 with disabilities (5.56% prevalence).
- Psychological disability was most common (35.5%), followed by mixed, physical, and sensorial.
- Physical neglect (82.2%) was the most frequent maltreatment, with mothers as perpetrators in 83.8% of cases. Multiple risk factors were present in 64.5%.
Impact:
- Findings underscore that maltreatment of disabled children is primarily driven by a confluence of familial, social, and environmental factors.
- The study highlights that the number of co-occurring risk factors is a strong predictor of maltreatment severity.
- Results inform targeted interventions and support systems for vulnerable children with disabilities and their families.
Objectives:
To determine the prevalence of maltreated children with disabilities, the demographic characteristics, the frequency of the type of maltreatment, the perpetrator of the maltreatment, the family, social and environmental risk factors and to contribute information to knowledge of the etiopathogenesis of child maltreatment.
Patients And Methods:
We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study over a 10-year period (1991-2001). The health and socio-familial reports of 1,115 maltreated children entering foster care in Saragossa (Spain) were reviewed and those presenting physical, psychological and/or sensorial disability were included.
Results:
Sixty-two children with disabilities were admitted during the study period (a prevalence of 5.56 % below that expected). Mean age was 7.47 years (5.60 SDU) (range: 0-17 years). The most frequent age group was 0-5 years (43.5 %). The male-to-female ratio was 1.36:1. The most prevalent disability was psychological (35.5 %), followed by mixed (27.4 %), physical (25.8 %), and sensorial (11.2 %). The most frequent type of maltreatment was physical neglect (82.2 %). A total of 16.2 % of the children presented several types of maltreatment. In 83.8 % of the patients the perpetrator of the maltreatment was the mother. At least one family, social and/or environmental risk factor was present in 93.5 % of the children and more than one risk factor was present in 64.5 %.
Conclusions:
We believe that in most of the cases of maltreatment of disabled children from our environment, the etiopathogenesis was unrelated to the presence of an isolated individual risk factor (disability). Instead, maltreatment was related to the existence of familial, social and environmental risk factors. The greater the number of risk factors associated with a disabled child, the greater will be the possibility of maltreatment.