Factors Relating to the Aggressive Behavior of Primary Caregiver Toward a Child
SIRIKUL ISARANURUG, M.D., M.P.H.*, POONSOOK CHAUYTONG, M.Sc.*, PORNRUEDEE NITIRAT, M.Sc.**, CHAIWAT WONGARSA, M.Sc. *
Affiliation : *Department of Family Health, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, ** Prapokklao Nursing College, Chantaburi 22000, Thailand.
This study aimed to testify the relationship between specific characteristics of family or the caregiver and the aggressive behavior of the caregiver toward a child. The survey was conducted from 2"d to 30th of December 1996 among grade-six students in schools under the Bangkok Metro- politan Administration (BMA). During the survey, self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from the target group of 413 students. Among these, 81.8 per cent reported experiencing at least one form of aggressive behavior from their caregivers or parents. The findings revealed that the family relationship, economic status and caregiver's educational level reverdbly correlated with the number of types of aggressive behavior with statistical significance at p-value < 0.05 and r = -0.7697, -0.2467 and -0.1641, respectively. The family crisis positively correlated with the number of types of aggressive behaviors with r = 0.1249 and p-value < 0.05. Furthermore, the results showed that students from nuclear families, living in congested surroundings, having a caregiver with experience of unskilled-work, unemployment or gambling had a higher mean score of the number of types of aggressive behaviors than their counterparts which were statistically signifi- cant by t and F tests (p-value < 0.05). Hence, the quality of the parent-and-child relationship should be strengthened and a proactive approach should be conducted for families potentially at risk.
Keywords : Aggressive Behavior, Family Relationship, Family Crisis, Primary Caregiver, Grade-six Students
