Cognitive, emotional and behavioural consequences of child abuse in Saudi Arabia

The negative impact of a history of child abuse on the executive functioning and psychological health of children and adolescents has been well documented in the international literature. However, there is a notable paucity of such studies in Arab countries. Thus, the current thesis examined the impact of abuse on cognitive functioning, cortisol levels, psychological health, social support, and parenting disciplinary styles on a cross-sectional sample of school-aged Saudi children and adolescents. The thesis contains ten studies that are divided into two parts (each part comprises five studies). The primary sample consists of 104 school-aged Saudi children and adolescents (54 males) aged 9−15 years. The aim of the first part was to compare two groups— children with a history of abuse (n = 69) and controls who had no history of abuse (n = 36). In the second part, 69 children and adolescents (36 males aged 9−15 years with a history of abuse were included. This group were classified into two groups: high behavioural problems (High-BP; n = 37) and low behavioural problems (Low-BP; n = 32). The results suggest that a higher level of abuse history is associated with more trauma symptoms, negative parenting disciplinary styles and behavioural and emotional problems. In addition, more abuse is associated with poorer executive functioning, less social support, less resilience, poorer psychological security and poorer self-regulation. The overall findings and limitations are discussed in chapter five from the perspective of their clinical implications and social sensitivities in the context of the Saudi culture and family system.