Relationship between childhood trauma and risk-taking and self-harm behaviors among Eswatini adolescents.

BACKGROUND

There is a high number of child abuse and neglect cases globally that are associated with risk-taking and self-harm behaviors among adolescents in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

PARTICIPANTS AND

SETTING

A sample of 470 adolescent boys and girls 16.57 years from selected high schools in Eswatini participated in the study.

METHODS

Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) was used to assess childhood trauma and neglect. The Risk-taking and Self-harm Inventory for adolescents was utilized to measure adolescent risk-taking (RT) and self-harm (SH). A Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression were used to test the association of childhood trauma with risk-taking and self-harm behaviors.

RESULTS

Results indicated an overall significant positive relationship between childhood trauma (emotional abuse (r(467) = 0.195, p < .001), physical abuse (r(470) = -0.245, p < .001), sexual abuse (r(469) = 0.205, p < .001), and risk-taking behavior and significant positive relationship between emotional abuse (r(288) = 0.347, p < .001), physical abuse (r(290) = 0.290, p < .001), sexual abuse (r(290) = 0.293, p < .001), and emotional neglect (r(290) = -0.193, p < .001), and physical neglect (r(290) = -0.121, p < .04) and self-harm behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

A significant correlation was found between childhood trauma and risk-taking and self-harm behaviors. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse correlated with risk-taking behavior while all aspects of childhood trauma correlated with self-harm behavior.