TY - JOUR
T1 - Neglect, online invasive exploitation, and childhood sexual abuse in Hong Kong
T2 - Breaking the links
AU - Emery, Clifton R.
AU - Wong, Paul W.C.
AU - Haden-Pawlowski, Virgil
AU - Pui, Cayla
AU - Wong, Grace
AU - Kwok, Steve
AU - Liu, Amy Yinan
AU - Abdullah, Alhassan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2024/1
Y1 - 2024/1
N2 - Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a form of maltreatment that involves a child in sexual activity that she or he cannot fully comprehend or is unable to give informed consent to. The empirical link between child neglect and contact child sexual abuse is well established but little research examines mediators that explain this link. Objective: This study tests online risk behaviors and unwanted sexual experiences online as sequential mediators of the neglect – CSA relationship. Participant and setting: The study uses a representative cross-sectional sample of 1097 Hong Kong adolescents. Methods: Preacher and Hayes' (2008) non-parametric bootstrap approach was used to test three mediation hypotheses. Results: Baseline logistic regression models showed neglected children had 11.2 times higher odds of reporting contact CSA (p < .001). Similarly, neglect was associated with 3.5 times higher odds of more online risk behavior (p < .001), which in turn was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of more online invasive exploitation (p < .001). Online invasive exploitation was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of reporting offline contact CSA (p < .001). The study found online risk behaviors to be a significant mediator of the relationship between neglect and online invasive exploitation (unwanted online sexual experiences). Online invasive exploitation, in turn, mediated the relationship between online risk behaviors and offline contact CSA. Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of intervening against neglect as it appears to play a vital role in the etiology of contact CSA in Hong Kong.
AB - Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a form of maltreatment that involves a child in sexual activity that she or he cannot fully comprehend or is unable to give informed consent to. The empirical link between child neglect and contact child sexual abuse is well established but little research examines mediators that explain this link. Objective: This study tests online risk behaviors and unwanted sexual experiences online as sequential mediators of the neglect – CSA relationship. Participant and setting: The study uses a representative cross-sectional sample of 1097 Hong Kong adolescents. Methods: Preacher and Hayes' (2008) non-parametric bootstrap approach was used to test three mediation hypotheses. Results: Baseline logistic regression models showed neglected children had 11.2 times higher odds of reporting contact CSA (p < .001). Similarly, neglect was associated with 3.5 times higher odds of more online risk behavior (p < .001), which in turn was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of more online invasive exploitation (p < .001). Online invasive exploitation was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of reporting offline contact CSA (p < .001). The study found online risk behaviors to be a significant mediator of the relationship between neglect and online invasive exploitation (unwanted online sexual experiences). Online invasive exploitation, in turn, mediated the relationship between online risk behaviors and offline contact CSA. Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of intervening against neglect as it appears to play a vital role in the etiology of contact CSA in Hong Kong.
KW - Childhood sexual abuse
KW - Invasive exploitation
KW - Neglect
KW - Unwanted online sexual experiences
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85180756659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85180756659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106591
DO - 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106591
M3 - Article
C2 - 38128374
AN - SCOPUS:85180756659
SN - 0145-2134
VL - 147
SP - 1
EP - 15
JO - Child Abuse and Neglect
JF - Child Abuse and Neglect
M1 - 106591
ER -
