April Chiung-Tao Shen, Joyce Yen Feng, Hsiao-Lin Hwa, Jui-Ying Feng,  Hsi-Sheng Wei, Yi-Ping Hsieh, & Soar Ching-Yu Huang  (2014). The longitudinal study of child maltreatment in Taiwan. CIFA 4th Regional Symposium—Visioning the Future of Families: Policy and Practice. Shanghai, China (2014/11/13-15).

Abstract

Child maltreatment is a global social and health problem.  Despite evidence found in the associations among risk factors, child maltreatment, and children’s behavioral and health outcomes, the causal pathway is still uncertain.  Therefore, the main goal of this research project is to establish a large-scale longitudinal database on Taiwanese children to examine the complicated associations between violence exposure in different contexts (family, school and community) and various child developmental outcomes (including physical and psychological health, internet addiction, substance abuse and behavioral problems), in addition to identifying possible risk factors, mediators and moderators of child maltreatment and maladaptation.  The goal is to follow the children into young adulthood. Comprehensive assessments of children are scheduled to take place when the children reach the ages 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. 

This study collected the first wave of data with self-report questionnaires from a national proportionately stratified sample of 6290 students in 4^th grade in Taiwan in the spring semester of 2014 (49% were girls).  This study calculated one-year prevalence of different types of child maltreatment and found that bullying was the most prevalent (71%), followed by psychological neglect (69%), physical neglect (66%), psychological violence (43%), physical punishment (40%), exposure to inter-parental violence (27.8%) and community violence (21.7%), physical abuse (21%), severe physical abuse (9.8%), and sexual violence (9%).  The present research results show that despite the high prevalence of child maltreatment, only 2.4% of the sample had received child protective services.  The implications will be discussed.