Impact of domestic violence on physical growth psychological behaviour and academic performance of school children

Abstract

The present investigation has been conducted to study the impact of domestic violence on physical growth, psychological behaviour and academic performance of school children. The data for this cross-sectional study consist of 1074 school children (554 boys and 520 girls) ranging in age from 8 to 16 years newlinefrom Ludhiana city of Punjab state. The investigator interviewed the children to newlineknow the name of the subject, age, class, birth order, educational qualifications newlineand occupation of the parents as well as number of children, type of family, religion, caste and monthly income. Family Violence Scale proposed by Bhati and George (2001) has been used to asses the level of domestic violence in the families of subjects. Physical growth of the children has been studied on the bases of 14 anthropometric measurements Viz. weight, linear measurements newline(height, sitting height, and subischial length), circumferences (head, upper arm, newlineand calf), diameters (humerus bicondylar and femur bicondylar), and skinfolds (biceps, triceps, suprailiac, subscapular and calf). Problem Behaviour Check-List (PBCL) given by Veeraraghavan and Dogra (2000) has been used to assess the psychological behaviour of children. Statistical Constants viz. arithmetic mean, standard deviation, standard error of mean and ?t? test have been applied to all the parameters. On the basis of findings the present study can be summarized that children from low domestic violence families have been found to be heavier, taller, with broader skeletal frame and have more value of circumference and skinfolds as newlinecompared to children from high domestic violence families. It clearly reveals that newlinedomestic violence affects the physical growth of children. Similarly children from high domestic violence families have shown more newlinepsychological disturbances as compared to their counterparts from low domestic violence families. The girls have more behaviour problems than boys.