Marián Fedor, Ján Buchanec, Miroslava Brndiarová, Peter Ďurdík, Peter Bánovčin
Aim of the study: To establish prevalence of physical abuse in Slovakia on the basis of evaluation of the occurrence of particular types of physical abuse, that the child can remember of his/her life. Method: To accomplish the goal we used the questionnaire method of research. The questionnaire contained 6 questions dealing with the most frequent ways of domestic physical abuse that left physical mark on children’s bodies. Other questions dealt with beating children. Children specified the objects they were beaten with and the frequency of beating. We also evaluated the occurrence of abuse outside the children’s homes. Finally, on the basis of 13 questions concerning all the forms of physical abuses, leaving or not leaving physical marks on the children’s bodies we evaluated the percentage of children that have ever experienced any form of physical abuse. Result: The sample consisted of 695 randomly chosen respondents with the average age of 18 years. 12 % of children have ever been exposed to at least 1 of 6 evaluating ways of physical abuse and 2.2 % of children of the sample have been exposed to more forms of domestic violence. 86.5 % of children have ever been beaten by their parents (beating of any kind, leaving or not leaving physical marks, regardless of the factor of beating frequency), 8.8 % of children have been beaten very often. Slovak parents most frequently used their hands (82.4 % of cases), wooden spoons (55.1 % of cases), sticks (9.5 % of cases), brooms (6.2 % of cases), hoses (1.7 % of cases) and rods (0.7 % of cases) to beat their children. 14.6 % of children have been exposed to violence outside their homes. 24.6 % and 64.5 % of children of the sample have been exposed to all forms of physical abuses by one or more ways according to our criteria. Conclusion: Our results are comparable with other Western-European countries. The comparison of studies depends on the criteria of physical abuse evaluation.