Survey of adverse childhood experiences among young people in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
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World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe
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xi, 46 p.
This survey of adverse childhood experiences was undertaken in 1277 students aged over 18 years from arepresentative sample of high schools and universities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Thestudy findings show a high reported prevalence of physical abuse (21%), emotional abuse (10.8%), sexualabuse (12.7%), physical neglect (20%) and emotional neglect (30.6%). Both sexes were affected though sexualabuse and physical neglect were higher in males and emotional neglect was higher in females. Householddysfunction was also common: 10% witnessed violent treatment of their mother, 3.7% lived with someonewho abused drugs, 10.7% lived with an alcoholic, in 6.9% a household member had a mental illness, and in5% a household member had been incarcerated, and 3.8% had experienced parental separation. Adversechildhood experiences were linked to health-risk behaviours. For example, emotional abuse doubled thelikelihood of drug abuse, tripled the likelihood of attempting suicide, and increased the likelihood of earlypregnancy 3.5 times. Physical abuse increased the likelihood of early pregnancy 8.3 times and doubledthe likelihood of attempting suicide. There was a general trend that as the number of adverse childhoodexperiences increased, so did health-risk behaviours, implying an association with longer-term poor healthoutcomes.
This survey of adverse childhood experiences was undertaken in 1277 students aged over 18 years from arepresentative sample of high schools and universities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Thestudy findings show a high reported prevalence of physical abuse (21%), emotional abuse (10.8%), sexualabuse (12.7%), physical neglect (20%) and emotional neglect (30.6%). Both sexes were affected though sexualabuse and physical neglect were higher in males and emotional neglect was higher in females. Householddysfunction was also common: 10% witnessed violent treatment of their mother, 3.7% lived with someonewho abused drugs, 10.7% lived with an alcoholic, in 6.9% a household member had a mental illness, and in5% a household member had been incarcerated, and 3.8% had experienced parental separation. Adversechildhood experiences were linked to health-risk behaviours. For example, emotional abuse doubled thelikelihood of drug abuse, tripled the likelihood of attempting suicide, and increased the likelihood of earlypregnancy 3.5 times. Physical abuse increased the likelihood of early pregnancy 8.3 times and doubledthe likelihood of attempting suicide. There was a general trend that as the number of adverse childhoodexperiences increased, so did health-risk behaviours, implying an association with longer-term poor healthoutcomes.