Introduction: Corporal punishment and abuse of children can have a negative impact on their health and well-being. The aim is to examine on Icelandic adults, experience of corporal punishment as children, its prevalence, justification as victims, and its impact on the assessment of their upbringing.

Materials and methods: From the national population register, out of 1500 randomly selected adults 18 years and older, 977 (65%) partici-pated. In a telephone interview, they appraised their upbringing, fol-
l-owed by questions regarding 5 specific forms of corporal punishment in addition to an open-ended question about other forms experienced.

Results: Out of 968 respondents, 810 (84%) regarded their upbringing as good. In total, 465 (48%) reported at least one form of corporal punishment in childhood, with spanking being the most prevalent one (29%). Respondents 30 years and older were 1.9 times more likely to have experienced corporal punishment compared to those who were younger (95% CI 1.4-2.6) and males were 1.6 times more likely to report it compared to females (95% CI 1.2-2.0). Those who had frequently been punished were significantly more likely to hold of the opinion that it had never been justified (OR=6.5; 95% CI 1.8-22.9) and were more likely to judge their upbringing to have been reasonable or bad (OR=10.2; 95% CI 4.7-21.9) compared to those who had no such experience.

Conclusion: The practice of corporal punishment of Icelandic children was significantly less prevalent among respondents born about 1980 and later compared to those born earlier. Increased public debate and awareness of children´s rights and changed ideas about their upbringing has facilitated such development.

¹Directorate of Health and Reykjavík University, ²Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of Iceland.

Table I. Demographic background of participants.

	N	n (%)
Sex             Male             Female	977	471 (48) 506 (52)
Age (years)             18-29             30-39             40-49             50-59             60-	977	214 (22) 160 (17) 172 (18) 199 (20) 232 (23)
Place of living             Greater Reykjavík capital area             Elsewhere in Iceland	977	599 (61) 378 (39)
Education             Compulsory primary and lower secondary             Upper secondary             University	964	276 (29) 355 (37) 333 (34)
Civil status             Married             Cohabitation             Single             Divorced             Widow/-er	959	506 (53) 189 (20) 195 (20) 33 (3) 36 (4)
Income (in 1000 ISK)*             <150             150-299             300-549             550-	792	174 (22) 219 (28) 306 (38) 93 (12)

* At the time of survey, 1 euro=155 ISK; 1 US$=112 ISK

 

Table II.    Proportion of participants with experience of corporal punishment as children.

	Answered yes, %
Younger than 30 years (n=110)	36
30-49 years (n=329)	49
50-69 years (n=328)	53
70+ years and older (n=98)	52

 

 

Table III. Participants´experience of different forms of physical punishment.

		n (%)
Form of corporal punishment	N	Never	Once	Several times	Often or very often
Spanking	959	679 (71)	124 (13)	134 (14)	22 (2)
Slapping on the cheek	962	822 (85)	77 (8)	53 (6)	10 (1)
Shaking	952	812 (85)	20 (2)	110 (12)	10 (1)
Slapping on the fingers	949	830 (88)	18 (2)	91 (9)	10 (1)
Ear pulling and twisting	961	935 (97)	6 (1)	14 (1)	6 (1)
Other	960	933 (97)	4 (1)	14 (1)	9 (1)

 

Table IV.        Participants´ judgement on their upbringing by experience of different forms of corporal punishment. 

	Experience of different forms of corporal punishment % (n)
	None	One form	Two forms	Three or more forms	Mean of forms experienced (95% CI)
Respondents who judged their upbringing as good	58 (458)	28 (237)	10 (82)	4 (29)	0,61 (0,56-0,67)
Respondents who judged their upbringing as reasonable	31 (43)	28 (38)	28 (38)	13 (20)	1,34 (1,13-1,55)
Respondents who judged their upbringing as bad	17 (3)	17 (3)	22 (4)	44 (7)	2,47 (1,46-3,49)