Current Situation Research On Behavior Disorders Of Left-Behind Children In The Countryside

ObjectiveThe issue of behavioral disorder of left-behind children has been raised recently. Most of the current researches restrict their focus on pedagogical perspective. There are only few researches considering the impact of the issue from clinical perspective in existing literature. This research will study the incidence rate of behavioral disorder of left-behind children in countryside and the association between the incidence rate and the potential influential factors such as parents'socioeconomics and demographics in order to provide a guideline for government to choose appropriate preventive and therapeutic approach and help those left-behind children with behavioral disorder.MethodsWe adopt Achenbach's Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL), a device by which parents or other individuals who know the child well rate a child's problem behaviors and competencies, and self-designed survey including questionnaires on possible social factor which might affect the incidence of child's problem. The target population of the study is all children aged between 12 and 16 in Lujiang County, Anhui, China. We take a random sample of 10 middle schools among totally 54 schools in the district and sent the surveys to each family in which the selected child lives. There are totally 6255 students were included in the study. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 11.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Science).ResultsWe received 5973 valid surveys (95.49% of the total). Among those 5973 children in the study, 3168 (53. %) are boys and 2805 (47%) are girls. There are 3589 (60.1%) left-behind children.The incidence rate of behavioral disorder among left-behind children were 41.3% comparing 36.6% to non left-behind children. The different is statistically significant.In comparing all possible factors which might affect child's problem behavior, we found the significant difference between boy group and girl group with respect to boy's desintegrate factor, compulsion behavior, hostile behavior, aggressive behavior and attention problems. Girls are more conservative than boys.In the analysis related socio-economic characteristics of the family, parents and the child; we found that education of parents and custodians and the amount of time spent with children affect the incidence of child's problem behavior.Conclusion1. The incidence rate of problem behavior in left-behind children is 41.3% which is significant higher than that of non-left-behind children which implies a potential serious social problem.2. In comparing many problem behavior related factors, we found that gender is significant factor among those left-behind children. Girls are generally more conservative that boys.3. Socio-demographics of father and the amount of time the father spent on children have a significant impact on occurrence of problem behavior in the left-behind children. Mother's socio-demographics and time spending on children are NOT significant.4. Parents'and custodian's education is another significant factor which affects the occurrence rate of problem behavior for those left-behind children.