Prevalence of Childhood Sexual Abuse in China: A Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT

The objective of the current study was to explore the estimated prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in China. We conducted a meta-analysis that used the data from 36 articles. A total of 125 independent samples and 131,734 participants were included. The results revealed no significant difference in the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse between Chinese men (9.1%) and women (8.9%). The prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in studies from mainland areas was significantly higher than that from Hong Kong/Taiwan. The estimated prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in China also differed according to the definition of child sexual abuse, data collection method, year of data collection, and the mean age of participants at the time of assessment.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese sample
• child harm
• quantitative review
• methodological variation

Declaration of Interest

The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest to report.

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by “the 13th Five-Year Plan” of Sichuan Social Science: 2017 Annual Project. Grant number is SC17XK035.