I= ADULT PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AS A DETERMINANT OF ABUSED CHILDHOOD
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Title of Thesis
ADULT PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AS A DETERMINANT OF ABUSED CHILDHOOD
Author(s)
Arshi Ali
Institute/University/Department Details
Institute of Clinical Psychology/ University of Karachi
Session
2006
Subject
Clinical Psychology
Number of Pages
134
Keywords (Extracted from title, table of contents and abstract of thesis)
adult psychological problems, abused childhood, child abuse. anxiety, depression, ocd, phobia, somatization, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation, psychotic features, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse

Abstract
The purpose of the present research was to investigate the psychological problems of adults who were abused in childhood because child abuse occurs in all geographic locations including both urban and rural areas. It cuts across socio-economic groups, races and religions as well. Child abuse is not an isolated problem; it is an issue of national concern.

It was hypothesized that adults who have been verbally, physically and sexually abused in childhood will be at greater risk in the development of psychological problems i.e., anxiety, depression, OCD, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, phobia, somatization, paranoid ideation and psychoticism as compare to those adults who have not been abused 'in childhood.

In order to measure abused childhood a checklist questionnaire was prepared after conducting two pilot studies where as Symptoms Assessment - 45 scale was selected for measuring psychological problems of adults. The sample of the present research comprised of two hundred and forty eight (248) adults, 135 males and 113 females. Their ages range between 18 to 26 years. Checklist questionnaire and SA-45 scale were applied on a large population than on the basis of cut off scores non abused and abused groups were identified. ANOVA, Tukey's post hoc analysis and other descriptive statistics were performed for analyzing the data. For interpreting the results, α 0.05 level of significance was set.

The results revealed that the adults who have been abused specifically in terms of verbal, physical and sexual tend to have anxiety, depression, OCD, phobia, somatization, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation and psychotic features as compared to those adults who have not been abused in childhood, on the other hand adults who have been abused specifically in terms of verbal and physical tended to reveal no significant difference in phobia and somatization scores in the comparison of those adults who have not been abused in childhood. However, comparison of verbally, physically and sexually severe abused and non-abused group on phobia scores depicted no significant differences.

Recommendations and avenue for further research have also been suggested.
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S. No. Chapter Title of the Chapters Page Size (KB)
1 0 Contents
384.6 KB
2 1 Introduction 1
1030.87 KB
  1.2 Child Abuse 4
  1.3 Child Sexual Abuse 11
  1.4 Child Physical Abuse 16
  1.5 Verbal Abuse 20
  1.6 Child Abuse In Pakistan 24
3 2 Observation 29
77.15 KB
  2.1 Hypotheses 30
4 3 Pilot Studies 32
157.99 KB
  3.1 First Pilot Study 32
  3.2 Second Pilot Study 34
5 4 Methodology 37
269.47 KB
  4.1 Operational Definitions 43
6 5 Results 45
1002.57 KB
7 6 Discussion 82
936.63 KB
  6.1 Conclusion 103
  6.2 Recommendations 104
  6.3 Implications 105
8 7 References 106
704.85 KB
  7.1 Appendices 129