Scale and forms of domestic violence against schoolchildren in rural, rural-urban and urban areas

Introduction. In 2017, the third cyclical study on the scale of domestic violence against schoolchildren and youth in one of the rural communes of the Western Pomerania (Poland) was carried out. The study took into account five forms of violence: mental, physical, neglect, economic and sexual. The previous two editions of the study covered urban-rural (2016) and urban communities (2015). Materials and method. The research concept was implemented by means of the representative research method, using an auditing questionnaire interview technique, based on a research tool developed on the basis of a number of previous qualitative research and quantitative tests to measure the social scale of domestic violence. Results. Domestic violence against minors reaches 48.2% in the rural area under study, 51.8% in the urban-rural area and 65.5% in the urban area. In all types of areas, the most frequent form of violence was psychological violence, it affects 42.4% of children in rural communitys, 51.3% in urban-rural and 60.5% in urban municipalities. In reference to other, less frequent forms of violence, there was also a difference in scale according to the area type. Conclusions. The incidence of individual forms of domestic violence varied depending on the type of area: Psychological violence: rural areas – 42.4%, urban-rural – 51.3%, urban areas – 60.5%; Neglect: rural areas – 21.1%, urban-rural – 13.5%, urban areas – 22.3%; Physical violence: rural areas – 17.1%, urban-rural – 20.7%, urban areas – 29.4%; Economic violence: rural areas – 12.6%, urban-rural – 19.2%, urban areas – 29.3%; Sexual violence: rural areas – 3.2%, urban-rural – 3.6%, urban areas – 8.1%.