[Meta-analysis on the incidence rates of child sexual abuse in China]

To offer basic data related to the prevention of child sexual abuse, we conducted a Meta-analysis on the national incidence rate on child sexual abuse in the country.

Publications between 2000 and 2013 were extracted from PubMed, Springer Link, Elsevier-SDOL, Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Science & Technology journal database (VIP), Wanfang Databases, China master's Theses Full-text Database and China Conference Papers Full-text Database. Observational studies which containing the incidence rate of child sexual abuse were included. We used the Loney criteria to evaluate the quality of searched publications. The Meta incidence rate was estimated using the Stata software. Subgroup analysis were undertaken on gender issues. Sensitivity analysis were performed to evaluate the impact of types or qualities to the research objects.

Fifteen papers were included in this Meta-analysis, with a sample size of 16 682. The combined incidence rate of child sexual abuse was 18.20% (95%CI:13.74%-22.66%). For injured persons, girls had a higher incidence rate on child sexual abuse (11.22%) than boys (8.25%) in terms of contact sexual abuse, but no significant difference on gender was found in the prevalence rates of global and un-contact sexual abuse. Data from sensitivity analysis revealed that the quality or types of the objects slightly affected the incidence rate of traffic injuries.

of this study indicated that child sexual abuse was common and serious in China, suggesting that prevention and control programs on childhood abuse should be emphasized and promoted.