Victimization and Mental Health Problems of Children and Adolescents in Gondar Town, North Western Ethiopia
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Date
2015-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Victimization and mental health problems of children and adolescents are major concerns of
almost all societies worldwide. Previous studies have documented the magnitudes of the
problems of victimizations and mental health problems in children and adolescents. However, in
most cases those studies focused on few types of victimization and mental health problems.
Accordingly, the major purpose of this study was to estimate prevalence of victimizations and
mental health problems, identify factors that contribute to victimizations, and examine the
association between victimization and mental health problems of children and adolescents in the
elementary schools of Gondar town, North West Ethiopia. Analysis was made on a sample of 403
children and adolescents, randomly drawn from the target population using stratified sampling
technique. Adapted measures of Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) and Achenbach
Systems of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) were employed to gather data on
victimization experiences and mental health problems respectively. Percentage was used to
determine the prevalence of victimizations and mental health problems whereas series of logistic
regression analyses were run to examine the contributions of independent victimizations for the
various dimensions of mental health problems of the respondents. The major findings indicate
that nearly 80 % of the respondents experienced victimizations. The odds of males experiencing
victimization was found to be 2.41(95% CI=1.41-4.12) times more than females and the
probability of the occurrence of any form of victimization was higher for those who came from
low income families by 3.23 (95% CI =1.06-9.80) times than respondents from high income
families. The proportion of overall mental health problems among the respondents was 14.4%.
Child maltreatment was found to be significantly contributing to manifestations of the symptoms
of overall mental health and internalizing problems with odds ratios of 2.6 (95% CI=1.16-4.39)
and 2.52 (95% CI=1.42-4.49) respectively. Conventional crime was significantly linked with
internalizing problems with OR=.2.95 (95% CI=1.37-6.34). Furthermore, poly-victimizations
were significantly associated with any mental health,X 2 (1,N=403)=17.02, p<.001;internalizing,
χ 2 (1,N=403)=17.46,p<.001; and externalizing problems, χ 2 (1,N=403)=11.36, p<.05.The study
concludes that exposures to victimizations put children and adolescents at the risks of developing
mental and behavioral health problems. Finally, psycho-legal service implications and issues
that require further inquiry are identified
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North western ethiopia