Abstract
The purpose of the research was to investigate the resultant psychological problems of adults who were physically abused in childhood. It was hypothesized that adults who had been physically abused in childhood would be at greater risk in the development of psychological problems i.e., anxiety, depression, OCD and hostility as compared to those adults who had not been abused in childhood.
In order to measure abused childhood, a checklist questionnaire was prepared 'after conducting pilot study, where as the Symptoms Assessment - 45 scale was selected for measuring psychological problems of adults. The sample for the present research comprised of one hundred and one (101) adults, 50 males and 51 females. Their ages ranged between 18 to 26 years. A Checklist questionnaire and the SA-45 were administered on a large population, then on the basis of cut off scores, non abused and abused groups were identified.
The t-test and other descriptive statistics were applied for analyzing the data. For interpreting the results, 0.05 level of significance was set.
The hypotheses have significantly been proved that the adults who have been abused tend to develop anxiety, depression, OCD and hostility later in life as compared to those adults who have not been abused in childhood.