Provided by David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.
Surgeon General of the United States of America
Chapter 3: Children and Mental Health
Overview of Risk Factors and Prevention
Childhood Maltreatment
Child abuse is a very widespread problem; it is estimated that over 3 million children are maltreated every year in the United States (National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, 1995). Physical abuse is associated with insecure attachment (Main & Solomon, 1990), psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, conduct disorder, ADHD (Famularo et al., 1992), depression (Kaufman, 1991), and impaired social functioning with peers (Salzinger et al., 1993). Psychological maltreatment is believed to occur more frequently than physical maltreatment (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989); it is associated with depression, conduct disorder, and delinquency (Kazdin et al., 1985) and can impair social and cognitive functioning in children (Smetana & Kelly, 1989).
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