The scope of this research was to investigate the association of psychological violence (PV) during adolescence with social and demographic factors, family structure/relationships and with other forms of maltreatment. A questionnaire was applied to 229 adolescents (11-18 years) in outpatient services in a state-run tertiary pediatric hospital. It was found that 26.4% of respondents suffered severe PV in the family context, and only 5 of the respondents reported they did not suffer any PV in the family context, illustrating how this kind of violence is seen as commonplace in the family relationship. The most common forms of PV behavior were: being criticized for what one does or says; not being encouraged when trying to act autonomously; being called nasty names, and having an adult saying one is wrong when one tries to act. Dissatisfaction of parents with the adolescent, the nuclear family structure, the position of the child among siblings sharing the same parents were associated with PV occurring within the family context. In order to enable it to detect signs of PV, the health sector can promote the right to comprehensive health of adolescents, confirming itself as one of the main social sectors capable of acting preventively on the forms of violence suffered and practiced by the family group.
Psychological violence; Adolescent; Family; Outpatient service
