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Abstract
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The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has as of mid of October 2021, affected over 220 countries (with over 237,655,300 confirmed cases and 4,846,980 deaths; WHO, 2021a) and unprecedented disruption in the daily lives of people worldwide. Efforts to slow viral transmission, including quarantine and school closures (Baron et al., 2020; Engzell et al., 2021), have introduced profound changes in family routines and children circumstances. The conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic (Bridgland et al., 2021; Calvano et al., 2021; Gadermann et al., 2021) have heightened the likelihood for both life stressors (Brown et al., 2020; Griffith, 2020; Achterberg et al., 2021; Mohler-Kuo et al., 2021; Spinelli et al., 2021) and childhood maltreatment (CM; Bérubé et al., 2020; Lawson et al., 2020; Rodriguez et al., 2021; Wong et al., 2021), while clinical and social services are weakened and resources for support are reduced (Jentsch and Schnock, 2020; Usher et al., 2020).
CM is already highly prevalent and widespread (Gilbert et al., 2009; Stoltenborgh et al., 2012; Hillis et al., 2016; UNICEF, 2021). It is estimated that one out of two children aged 2-17 years old experience some form of CM each year (Hillis et al., 2016), emotional abuse affects one in three children (Stoltenborgh et al., 2012), and one in four children lives with a mother who is the victim of intimate partner violence (UNICEF, 2021). Given the lockdowns, social restrictions and living in confinement coupled with massive economic disarray, we could expect a dangerous increase in the negative consequences of CM (Garstang et al., 2020; Pereda and Díaz-Faes, 2020), affecting those who, before COVID-19, have already suffered CM, but also putting children at risk for CM who were previously unaffected. Additionally, the protective measures for preventing the spread of the virus have heightened the risk for specific types of CM [e.g., online abuse or bullying, criminal, child sexual exploitation (Kuehn, 2020), and domestic violence (Evans et al., 2020; Pereda and Díaz-Faes, 2020; Rodriguez-Jimenez et al., 2020; UN Women, 2020; Cappa and Jijon, 2021)].
The clinical implementation of measures for the detection of CM is a priority. Even with the vaccine's anticipated impact on preventing the spread of the disease, new waves of COVID-19 pandemic are hitting many parts of the world driven by new variants of the virus (WHO, 2021b). There will be long lasting health, economic, developmental, and social impacts of COVID-19. It is plausible to believe that, after COVID-19, problems will not disappear for children who will continue to suffer the consequences of this crisis. It is, therefore, critical to understand and strengthen the well-being of children with pre-existing vulnerabilities (as a history of CM), and highlight key research targets to advance our knowledge of the challenges those affected by CM and stressful events (Bridgland et al., 2021) during COVID-19 are facing (Fares-Otero et al., 2020, 2021).
Language: en |