Associations between caregiver stress and child verbal abuse and corporal punishment in Thailand’s impoverished Deep South region during the COVID-19 pandemic

The objectives of this study are: (1) To describe the levels of parental stress, self-reported child verbal abuse and corporal punishment among caregivers, and;(2) To assess the extent that having moderate or higher levels of parental stress is associated with self-reported child verbal abuse and corporal punishment. We randomly sampled 12 villages and sampled 40 households per village in Thailand’s impoverished Deep South region in June 2020. Study participants included 466 caregivers residing in sampled households. Trained enumerators used the standard ST-5 questionnaire to measure stress level and asked the participants to self-report the study outcomes. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression analyses. Approximately 19.1% of caregivers reported moderate, high, or severe level of stress. Caregivers with moderate and higher levels of stress were more likely than caregivers with low level of stress to report child verbal abuse (48% vs. 23%, respectively;Adj. OR = 3.11, 95% CI = 1.90, 5.11) and corporal punishment (28% vs. 8%, respectively;Adj. OR = 2.62, 95% CI = 1.36, 5.04). We found associations between caregiver’s stress level and self-reported verbal abuse and corporal punishment of children in the household. However, social desirability, lack of details in the answers, and potential confounding by mental illness co-morbidities were notable limitations of the study. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Mental Health is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)