Medical problems of aggression and violence in children in family
Norbert Dera1, Wojciech Gruszczyński2
Violence is a timeless process going beyond ethnic, racial, age, national, socioeconomical limits and conditions. CBOS (Polish Public Opinion Research Centre) data shows that every five Pole beats children once a month or more frequently. Over 25% of teenagers meet violence in their families. The basic problem which does not allow to estimate the size of phenomenon completely is notification of violence cases to the law enforcement bodies – only every seven case is reported to the police in the USA, in Poland the notification is much lower. The effects of hurting a child remain in physical and mental sphere for long years. In such children speech defects, weepiness, fearfulness, oversensitivity or indifference, lack of reaction on an adult’s smile or voice, backward of motricity development, sleeping and eating disorders are usually observed. Children experiencing violence complain much more frequently about ailments such as stomachache, headache, infections of urinary system, traumas, asthma, recurrence of airway infections, vomiting, bed-wetting, period disorders. Emotional disorders provoked by violence are also defined as post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome (PTSD). From a psychiatric point of view in a child or an adolescent experiencing the long-term trauma it leads over time to complex post-traumatic stress disorder (DESNOS). Whereas traumatic events connected with parents’ alcoholic problems experienced in childhood cause syndrome of psychopathological symptoms and behaviour disorders called Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA).