Effects Of Child Psychological Maltreatment On Primary And Middle School Students’ Coping Strategies And Emotional And Behavioral Problems

Objective:To investigate characteristics of Coping strategies of children with different types of children psychological maltreatment and mental health status, and to analyze the mechanism of Coping strategies on children psychological maltreatment to mental health.Methods:1605students of grade4to6in a primary school, junior1to3in a middle school and senior1to3in a high school from Xiangtan and Xiangxiang in Hunan province were measured with Child Psychological Maltreatment Scale, Coping Style Scale for Middle School Students and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).Results:Abused children and No Abused children showed significant differences on Coping strategies and emotional and behavioral problems. Abused children prefer to adopt emotion-oriented coping (P<0.001). They have more emotional symptoms, more conduct problems, more hyperactivity/inattention (P<0.001) and less prosocial behaviors (P<0.001). When grouping the children by different abused types and mental health status, it was found that the only result with no differences is the dimension of seeking social support. Meanwhile, there are significant differences among abused children with mental aberration, normal asbused children and normal no abused children. The children with psychological maltreatment have less coping strategies on problem-oriented than children without psychological maltreatment (P <0.001), but have more emotion-oriented coping (P<0.001)Independent test of mediating effects showed, children psychological maltreatment influence emotional and behavioral problems partly through the mediating effects of emotion-oriented coping and problem-oriented coping strategies, According to structural equation modeling, the total effects of children psychological maltreatment to children mental health includes its direct effect and mediating effects. The former ones are from parental abuse (β=0.28,51.96%), and the latter ones are from emotion-oriented coping and problem-oriented coping (β =0.59,39.63%;β=-0.42,8.22%)Conclusion:Children with psychological maltreatment prefer to use emotion-oriented coping strategies, so that they have much more emotional and behavioral problems. Children psychological maltreatment influence emotional and behavioral problems through the mediating effects of emotion-oriented coping and problem-oriented coping strategies,...