This study revelaed that child maltreatment was quite common in junior high school students in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. About 46,69% of our subjects had history of child maltreatment. Indonesia itself has no definite data of child maltreatment or child abuse so far. However, this current study showed the history of victimization in psychological dimensions was the most widely experienced by the students (46.31%), followed with violence exposure (45.04%), and physical victimization (40.84%). On the other hand, sexual victimization was uncommon (21.88%). Epidemiological data from a study in India showed that the highest prevalence of violence experienced was psychological (61.9%), physical (21.43%) and sexual violence (16.67%).23 Meanwhile data from the United States showed 686.000 cases of children violence was neglect (78.6%), physical abuse (18.3%) and sexual violence (9.3%).23 However, several studies showed the cumulative prevalence based on a survey of communities were about 15-30% in girls and 5-15% in boys for sexual violence, 5-35% for physical violence, 4-9% psychological violence and 6-12% neglect23.
Most of subjects were seventh grade students who were in early adolescent phase (ages 11 to 14) were typically very egocentric with poor self-regulation.24 Those young adolescents were most emotionally victimized at school. School violence played an important role in developing depression.12,25 Meanwhile, conduct disorder had the highest prevalence in adolescents, namely 7% in adolescents aged 12 to 16 years old.26
This study showed all child maltreatment dimensions had significant association with depression. This is similar to prior studies that asserted the existence of correlation between the histories of violence in children with depression.27,28 Subjects with history of psychological child maltreatment had 6.51 times higher risk of depression. This finding is similar to a meta-analysis that stated abuse or maltreatment and neglect were strongly associated between child abuse history with depressive disorder in adolescence.25 Moreover, Pirdehghan’s study in Iran showed a correlation between mental disorder and violence (Spearman rho:0.2;p-value <0.001) as well.29
We found that depressive symptoms on the CDI were strongly associated with all dimension of child maltreatment, particularly psychological violence and neglect. In one review of 124 studies, psychological violence increased the risk of depression by an odds ratio of 3.06, whereas physical abuse increased the risk of depression by only half that amount.Furthermore, psychological violence maltreatment was more closely related to depression severity than sexual or physical abuse.10
Emotional abuse and neglect may alter the development of brain reward and oxytocin systems in children leading to impaired parental care giving in the subsequent generation.31
These findings were confirmed in a recent systematic review and meta-analysis, although most of the data came from retrospective cross-sectional studies or longitudinal designs that relied on selfreported abuse.32 Sexual violence showed a far weaker association. There are several possible explanations. may be underreported because of stigma.33
Practitioners should be aware that violence during childhood might result in negative consequences in adolescents. Therefore, a good understanding is required to prevent violence acts against children hence might increase effective intervention for violence issue in adolescents.30