The impact of childhood abuse and exposure to family violence on college students' self-esteem

Objective To investigate the impact of childhood abuse and exposure to family violence on college students'self-esteem.Methods Using Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-28 Item Short Form(CTQ-SF),Witness to interparental Violence Questionnaire,Self-esteem Scale(SES),and to investigate 412 college students tional abuse,emotional ignorance,physical ignorance or exposure to interparental physical violence had lower selfesteem(28.04±4.31,28.43±3.81,28.55±3.70,28.66±3.67,28.15±3.87),compared to the students withStudy showed the self-esteem was negatively correlated with childhood physical abuse,emotional abuse,sexual abuse,emotional ignorance,physical ignorance and exposure to interparental physical violence(r=-0.134,-0.216,-0.359,-0.250,-0.170,P＜0.01).Study showed most significant correlation between childhood emotional ignorance,childhood emotional abuse and self-esteem.Conclusion The experience of childhood abuse and ignorance,exposure to family violence have side effects on college students'self-esteem.The most important factors are childhood emotional ignorance and emotional abuse. Key words: Childhood abuse; Family violence; Self-esteem