Profile Analysis of Child Maltreatment Experiences Among Detained Adolescents in Korea

Abstract

Background: This study explored profiles of child maltreatment experiences and their association with physical and psychological adjustments among adolescents who have been detained in juvenile detention centers in Korea. Aebi, Linhart, and Thun-Hohenstein (2014) used latent profile analysis (LPA) among detained adolescents and found that a group with high severity within each type of maltreatment showed higher levels of psychiatric disorders than other groups. This finding indicates that experiencing severe maltreatment can be a significant predictor of detained adolescents' mental health functioning. However, few empirical studies have explored how different child maltreatment profiles influence adolescents' mental and physical health in Korea. Therefore, this study not only employed LPA to identify groups with different maltreatment profiles but also examined associations between each of those groups and physical and psychological adjustments.

Method: This study was conducted as a part of comprehensive study aiming to understand sequelae of abused children and adolescents involved with Child Protective Services in Korea and funded by Korean Ministry of Justice. Survey was administered to one-hundred-thirty-eight adolescents detained in juvenile detention centers in 2015. Childhood maltreatment was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) in which 5 subscales were measured: emotional abuse, physical abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect, and sexual abuse (excluded in the analysis due to the absence of response). To measure individuals' mental and physical health, this study employed the Youth Self Report. Of the total sample, 134 detained adolescents (mean age = 17.16 years), 119 male (88.8%) and 15 female (11.2%), were utilized for the analysis.

Results: LPA was conducted to identify groups with different maltreatment profiles based on the 4 CTQ subscales: emotional abuse, physical abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. The fit statistics suggested that the 3-class solution displayed the high entropy (.98). The BIC, bootstrapped likelihood ratio test, and sample-size adjusted BIC also supported the 3-class solution. Thus, we selected the 3-class solution whereby 116 (86%) participants were categorized as a low maltreatment group, 10 (7.4%) as a moderate maltreatment group, and 8 (6.0%) as a severe maltreatment group. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to observe mean differences in mental and physical health among the groups. The severe maltreatment group showed the worst physical and psychological adjustment outcomes followed by the moderate and low maltreatment groups. In the regression analysis, the severe maltreatment group experienced significantly higher levels of physical, internalizing, externalizing, and attention problems than the low maltreatment group. In comparison between the modest and severe maltreatment groups, only physical and internalizing problems were statistically significant.

Implications: The results indicated that the experience of severe maltreatment was negatively associated with physical and psychological adjustments among adolescents detained in juvenile detention centers in Korea. In fact, this result is consistent with Charak and Koot’s study (2015) conducted in India and Lin et al.’s study (2016) in China. In this regard, interventions considering the severity of maltreatment and then targeting youth exposed to severe maltreatment would be crucial.