Child abuse: A study on public perceptions about relationship between demographic factors and level of awareness towards child abuse

摘要

This article presents the results of an investigation into public perceptions of the relationship between demographic factors and levels of awareness towards child abuse. The research objectives are to identify the level of awareness towards child abuse amongst the public, to ascertain the relationship between demographic factors and levels of awareness towards child abuse and to determine the differences in awareness towards child abuse according to gender, age, marital status, and race/ethnicity. The researchers identified four independent variables which are gender perceptions, age perceptions, marital status perceptions and also race/ethnicity perceptions. The study generated a 200-respondent sample from the general public. The research w as conducted using the statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 16.0 and the data was analyzed using Pearson's correlation. The results indicate positive correlations between levels of awareness towards child abuse and the four independent variables.