Ethnic Disparities and the Psychological Trauma of Maltreated Children: Evidence from Three Multi-ethnic Counties in China

Guowei Wan and Huihui Gong ()
Additional contact information
Guowei Wan: Nankai University
Huihui Gong: Hunan University

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2022, vol. 17, issue 5, No 17, 2765-2788

Abstract: Abstract This study aims to discuss the effect of ethnicity on child maltreatment trauma in China and to contribute to international knowledge on the quality of life of children. The data come from a survey of 1763 rural children (Mage = 12.34, 50.0% boys) in three multi-ethnic counties in western China that was conducted from November 2019 to January 2020 with the modified versions of the “Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire” Scale. There are three important findings of this study. First, child maltreatment is significantly related to child depression in China. The depression score and rate of severe depression symptoms (SDS) are 2.09 times and 3.82 times higher, respectively, for maltreated children than children without maltreatment. Second, the effects of maltreatment on child depression differ significantly among the ethnic groups. The negative effect of maltreatment is most influential among the Han population and least influential among the Zhuang population. Third, ethnic disparities are also found in the effects of the influencing factors on child depression. The effect of intergenerational relationships on child depression is significant only in the Han and Tibetan populations, while the negative effect of peer support is found only among Han, Tibetan, and Miao children. Based on the confirmation of ethnic disparities in trauma due to maltreatment, this study suggests that it is necessary to establish a high-quality psychological intervention system in China’s multi-ethnic counties.

Keywords: Ethnicity; Child maltreatment; Depression; Psychological trauma; Multi-ethnic counties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-021-09994-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:17:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1007_s11482-021-09994-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-021-09994-8

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().