The Correlation between Childhood Maltreatment and Anxiety Level among Street Children in Indonesia

Introduction: Childhood maltreatment (CM) may cause anxiety for victims throughout their lives. This anxiety would later cause further impact, even statistically become a significant risk factor for suicide attempts, and is suspected as the mechanism of intergenerational transmission of CM. Street children are more prone to CM, as they have been faced with a lack of standard services and become convenient targets for violence and exploitation. Thus, anxiety level is found to be high among street children in several countries. The aim of this study is to analyze the correlation between childhood maltreatment and anxiety level among street children in Indonesia. Methods: This research used the observational analytic method with a cross-sectional study design. A total sample of 40 street children from UPTD Kampung Anak Negeri and Save Street Child Surabaya completed the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool Child Version as a measuring instrument for childhood maltreatment and the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale to scale anxiety level. Spearman’s rank was used to analyze data using IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Results: There are significant and positive correlations (p<0.05 or p<0.01; r>0) between anxiety level and psychological abuse (r=0.381), physical abuse (r=0.340), neglect (0.356), and sexual abuse (0.505) among street children in Indonesia. Exposure to violence did not show significant interaction with anxiety level (p>0.05). Conclusion: The results confirmed that more experience of psychological abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse will cause higher levels of anxiety. The most significant form of childhood maltreatment that influences anxiety levels is sexual abuse.