Published Paper Details:

Abstract Introduction: Child maltreatment often goes hand in hand with numerous other adverse life experiences like poverty, desuetude, overcrowding, substance abuse of family members, lack of adequate medical care, parents' unemployment, and parents' psychopathology. The present retrospective survey attempted to find out the magnitude of child abuse among nursing students as children and to find out the incidences of various types of child abuse among them during their childhood. This study was primarily aim to find out the percentage of students who experienced various types of violence and atrocities as children. Results: A total of 136 students participated in the study. Data on experiences of childhood abuse, 56.68(78) participants expressed that they had childhood abuse.12.3% of the participants were abused by parents, 10.7% were abused by elders at home, 10.7% had abuse from teachers and 8.3% had abuse from relatives. 35.4% of the participants had emotional neglect and abuse, 23.7% had experienced molestation, and 17.6% experienced molestation from parents, relatives, visitors at home and 5% had experience from strangers too. These molestations were real sexual contact and not just exposure. Discussion: Majority of them found emotional blackmailing is a frequent strategy used by abusers to keep children away from disclosing the event to anyone. Though child abuse shows the staggering financial costs, no price can be kept on the emotional cost of abuse that produce irreversible behaviour that makes the life of the abused and others around miserable. Conclusion: Child abuse can happen anywhere like inside homes, schools, foster care institutions, at playgrounds, work places and online as well, through social networking sites. Hence it is essential to bring about a holistic approach to the study of Child Abuse, its prevention and its impact on the lives of children.