Childhood Psychological Abuse and Mental Health of Youth | The International Journal of Indian Psychȯlogy

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Comparative Study

| Published: December 25, 2014

Childhood Psychological Abuse and Mental Health of Youth

Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu. India Google Scholar More about the auther

Jeny Rapheal ,

Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu. India Google Scholar More about the auther

Varghese Paul.K

Head, Department of Psychology, Prajyoti Niketan College, Pudukad, Thrissur, Kerala, India Google Scholar More about the auther

DIP: 18.01.065/20140201

DOI: 10.25215/0201.065

ABSTRACT

Mental health is clearly an integral part of health. It is part of an individual’s capacity to lead a happy and fulfilling life. As a form of child maltreatment psychological abuse can have a significant impact upon the mental health. The current study examined the influencing role of psychological abuse on mental health among 211 Keralite undergraduate youth between 18 to 24 years from data collected using Mental Health Inventory and Childhood Experiences of Care and Abuse Questionnaire-2. Results revealed average mental health of youth with no significant gender difference in mental health and in the prevalence of psychological abuse except in its severity from father. Psychological abuse significantly correlated with mental health variables. A 2 way ANOVA showed significant main effect of severe maternal psychological abuse on mental health. Severity of parental psychological abuse significantly predicted poor mental health (18.7% variability). The findings indicate the need for more effective measures to prevent psychological abuse of children.

Keywords

Child maltreatment, Mental health, Psychological abuse, Youth

This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite this article:

D Damodaram, J Rapheal, V Paul (2014) Childhood Psychological Abuse and Mental Health of Youth International Journal of Indian Psychology, 2 (1), DOI: 10.25215/0201.065, DIP: 18.01.065/20140201