Victimization and Poly-victimization in a National Representative Sample of Children and Youth: The Case of Chile

In Chile, there is a little information about child and youth poly-victimization in a national representative sample. The aim of this study was to investigate the lifetime prevalence of victimization and poly-victimization in a large Chilean community sample of children and youth aged 12– 18 years. The sample consisted of 19,648 children and youth (M = 14.72, SD = 1.52), 49.7% males, and 50.3% females, recruited from 699 secondary schools in 15 regions from Chile. The Spanish version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire was applied, assessing six aggregate categories of childhood victimization (conventional crimes, caregiver, peer and sibling, witnessed and indirect, sexual, and electronic victimization). Descriptive analyzes were conducted to establish the prevalence of six types of victimizations and poly-victimization. Odds ratios were used to estimate differences between the genders and age groups. A total of 91.8% males and 93.8% females reported at least one type of victimization in their lifetimes. Females were generally more exposed to victimization than males and older youth were more exposed to victimization than early youth. Results indicated that exposure to multiple types of victimization was very common, indeed, the most victimized group (polivictims) reported 14 or more types of victimization in their lifetimes. This study provided a more general view of the child and youth victimization in Chilean population and new information on the epidemiology of victimization in the international context.