Parental Socio-Economic Status and Child Abuse Among Teenagers in Public Secondary School in Okporo in Obio-Akpor LGA Area, Rivers State

ABSTRACT: Child abuse remains a significant social and developmental concern, with parental socio-economic circumstances potentially influencing children’s exposure to neglect, physical, emotional and other forms of maltreatment. This study examined the relationship between parental socio-economic status and child abuse among teenagers in public secondary schools in Okporo, Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire titled Parental Socio-Economic Status and Child Abuse Questionnaire (PSESCAQ). The study used 247 valid responses for data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the responses, while Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient was employed to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed significant relationships between parental socio-economic status and child abuse across the three socio-economic categories examined. High parental socio-economic status showed a significant positive relationship with child abuse (rₛ = .639, p < .001), while average parental socio-economic status also demonstrated a significant positive relationship (rₛ = .348, p < .001). The strongest relationship was observed between low parental socio-economic status and child abuse (rₛ = .919, p < .001). The study concludes that parental socio-economic status is significantly associated with child abuse among teenagers, although the occurrence of abuse may also involve other family and social factors. The study recommends strengthened parental support programmes, positive parenting education, school-based child-protection mechanisms and community interventions aimed at preventing child abuse across socio-economic groups.

KEYWORDS: Parental socio-economic status, Child abuse, Teenagers, Adolescents, Public secondary schools, Rivers State, Nigeria.