"1 in 4 youths abused, survey finds", SF Examiner, 4 Oct 94.

According to a telephone survey of 2,000 children, one in four
adolescents had been physically or sexually abused within the past
year.

"Children as victims of violence:  a national survey", D. Finkelhor and
J. Dziuba-Leatherman, Pediatrics, Oct 94, v. 94, pp. 413-420.

Background:  Recently there had been a great deal of public and media
attention to victimized children, but this concern has been largely
fragmented by focusing only on specific forms of victimization.  This
fragmentation has prevented a comprehensive view of the overall
victimization of children.

Objective:  To gain a more comprehensive perspective on the scope,
variety, and consequences of child victimization.

Kind of study:  Survey.

Subjects:  2,000 children (1,042 boys/958 girls) aged 10-16 years.

Responses/measurements:  Children were asked 12 basic questions about
any occurrence of nonfamily assault, family assault, kidnapping,
sexual abuse/assault, violence to genitals, and corporal punishment
within the last year and in their lifetimes.  Also asked were
follow-up questions about the details of the act(s)
(i.e. attempted/attempted and completed, noncontact/contact/rape,
family perpetrator/nonfamily perpetrator, injury/no injury).

How the survey was conducted:  The study staff contacted by telephone a
national sample of households through random digit dialing and
screened the sample for appropriate age children.  Interviewers spoke
with the caretakers about victimization prevention and the study and
obtained permission to speak with the children.  Then the staff
obtained consent from the children and, for 30-60 minutes, interviewed
them alone.

Blindness:   None.

Population:  Children in the U.S. who were contacted through random
digit dialing.

Control variables:  Characteristics such as household income,
race/ethnicity, region, type of metro area, and gender.

Statistical methods used:  Weighted sample to correct undercounting of
Black and Hispanic children.  Comparisons of weighted sample
proportions by types of victimization and completeness of act with 95%
confidence intervals.  Chi-square tests (analyses between various
control factors and types of victimization).  6 tables.

Stated conclusions:  Within the past year, a quarter of the children
had experienced a completed victimization (excluding corporal
punishment), a third had encountered a completed or attempted act, one
in eight had experienced an injury, and one in a hundred required
medical attention as a result.  Nonfamily physical assaults were the
most numerous, usually with boys.  Contact sexual abuse occurred to
3.2% girls and 0.6% of boys.  There were substantial numbers of
incidents of attempted kidnappings and violence directed to genitals.
Two-thirds of the victimizations were disclosed to someone, but only
25% to an authority.  Most likely to experience victimization were
Black or Hispanic, lived in the Mountain and Pacific areas, and lived
in large cities.

Nonresponse:  (in the population) 12% of the adults approached and 18%
of the eligible children with cooperating adults, due to refusal of
permission from adult or child; (in sample of subjects) none.

Difficulties in generalizing to the real world:  Only those between
10-16 years were studied.

Other problems:  Uncertainty of effectiveness of a telephone interview
(i.e. time constraints, no knowledge of body language).  Exclusion of
some high risk children such as those without telephones, those in
juvenile correctional and mental health facilities, those with
disabilities, and those who were angry/alienated to not participate.
Possible lack of disclosure of intimate victimizations to a stranger
interviewer.  Possibility of children's forgetting or repressing
certain acts.  Not many details obtained on every victimization due to
time.  Unclear control for siblings.  Definitions are broad.

How does this relate to the rest of the scientific literature:  Some
rates in this study were agreeable to past studies, but other rates
were not as high or low as other past studies due to difference in
categorization.  This study suggests the need for better statistics
and for a more comprehensive study on all forms of child
victimizations.