Child protection center of Zagreb and Brave phone conducted research Prevalence of abuse and neglect of children in Croatia :Correlation between abuse in childhood and other traumatic experience and some personality features. Research on the prevalence of child abuse and neglect was conducted in the spring of 2006 in a number of secondary schools in Croatia.
Considering the content of the research, the examinees were only off-age students. Total number of participants was 4191, the sample being representative of the population of secondary school graduates in Croatia.
Familiar instruments were modified and used in this research (Questionnaire about childhood abuse) and a number of scales measuring personality features and psychosocial functioning were used.
Results of this research indicate the prevalence of certain forms of abuse in childhood. According to the strict criterion, 15.9% were exposed to physical, 16.5% were exposed to emotional and 13.7% were exposed to sexual abuse. Note that if we include inappropriate exposures to children, then 18.1% of the youth experienced sexual abuse in their childhood.
Based on the obtained results, the following papers have been published and presented:
• Buljan Flander,G. (2007.). Exposure of children to abuse: Have we learned something? In: V. Kolesarić (ed.) Psihologija i nasilje u suvremenom društvu, Psychology of violence and maltreatment, Almanac of Scientific and professional symposium, Osijek, 45-52.
• Luca Mrđen,J., Ćosić,I. and Buljan Flander, G. (2007.) Prevalence of sexual abuse in Croatia. XI. ISPCAN European regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, 18.-21.11.2007. Lisbon, Portugal
• Profaca, B., Bačan, M., Buljan Flander, G. (2007.) Connection between anxiety in young people and their war-related family violence related experience, XI ISPCAN European Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, Lisbon, Portugal
A series of papers were published in scientific periodicals and one doctor’s thesis defended.
