Severity levels of physical punishment of children/adolescents: cluster analysis

Abstract Physical punishment – corporal punishment – of children/adolescents is highly prevalent. The objective of this study was to verify if, in a sample of parents/caregivers, there would be subgroups that would differentiate themselves regarding the behavior of physically punishing the children, in terms of modalities, frequency, body parts of the child affected, and presence of parental anger in the act of punishing, denoting severity levels associated with differences in the psychosocial variables pointed out in the literature as risk factors for physical abuse. A quantitative approach was adopted, with a cross-sectional design and cluster method. The study included 87 parents/caregivers who practice physical punishment. The analyses indicated the existence of three clusters that differed in the level of severity of corporal punishment and some of the psychosocial variables, denoting the importance of developing services/programs to cope with violence against children/adolescents and specific psychosocial intervention strategies.