UNICEF, Data and Analytics Section, 3 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA.
Child Abuse Negl. 2021 Jun;116(Pt 2):105053. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105053. Epub 2021 Apr 14.
Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers across the globe have attempted to understand how the health and socioeconomic crisis brought about by the coronavirus is affecting children's exposure to violence. Since containment measures have disrupted many data collection and research efforts, studies have had to rely on existing data or design new approaches to gathering relevant information.
This article reviews the literature that has been produced on children's exposure to violence during the pandemic to understand emerging patterns and critically appraise methodologies to help inform the design of future studies. The article concludes with recommendations for future research.
The study entailed a search of working papers, technical reports, and journal articles.
The search used a combination of search terms to identify relevant articles and reports published between March 1 and December 31, 2020. The sources were assessed according to scope and study design.
The review identified 48 recent working papers, technical reports, and journal articles on the impact of COVID-19 on violence against children. In terms of scope and methods, the review led to three main findings: 1) Studies have focused on physical or psychological violence at home and less attention has been paid to other forms of violence against children, 2) most studies have relied on administrative records, while other data sources, such as surveys or big data, were less commonly employed, and 3) different definitions and study designs were used to gather data directly, resulting in findings that are hardly generalizable. With respect to children's experience of violence, the review led to four main findings: 1) Studies found a decrease in police reports and referrals to child protective services, 2) mixed results were found with respect to the number of calls to police or domestic violence helplines, 3) articles showed an increase in child abuse-related injuries treated in hospitals, and 4) surveys reported an increase in family violence.
This review underscores the persistent challenges affecting the availability and quality of data on violence against children, including the absence of standards for measuring this sensitive issue as well as the limited availability of baseline data. Future research on COVID-19 and violence against children should address some of the gaps identified in this review.
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，全球各地的研究人员一直在试图了解冠状病毒带来的健康和社会经济危机如何影响儿童遭受暴力的情况。由于遏制措施扰乱了许多数据收集和研究工作，因此研究不得不依赖现有数据或设计新方法来收集相关信息。
本文回顾了在大流行期间儿童遭受暴力的文献，以了解新出现的模式，并批判性地评估方法，以帮助为未来的研究提供信息。文章最后提出了未来研究的建议。
该研究包括对工作文件、技术报告和期刊文章的搜索。
该搜索使用了组合搜索词来识别 2020 年 3 月 1 日至 12 月 31 日期间发表的相关文章和报告。根据范围和研究设计对来源进行评估。
综述确定了 48 篇关于 COVID-19 对儿童暴力影响的近期工作文件、技术报告和期刊文章。就范围和方法而言，综述得出了三个主要发现：1）研究集中在家庭中的身体或心理暴力，而对其他形式的儿童暴力关注较少；2）大多数研究依赖于行政记录，而其他数据源，如调查或大数据，则较少使用；3）不同的定义和研究设计用于直接收集数据，导致发现结果几乎无法推广。关于儿童遭受暴力的经历，综述得出了四个主要发现：1）研究发现向警察报案和向儿童保护服务机构转介的人数减少；2）有关向警察或家庭暴力求助热线的呼叫数量的结果喜忧参半；3）文章显示医院治疗的与虐待有关的儿童伤害增加；4）调查报告家庭暴力增加。
本综述强调了影响儿童暴力数据的可用性和质量的持续挑战，包括缺乏衡量这一敏感问题的标准以及基本数据的有限可用性。关于 COVID-19 和儿童暴力的未来研究应解决本综述中确定的一些差距。
