Introduction:

Physical punishment against the child within the family and performed by her or his mother is a public health concern in Latin America.

Objective:

To determine the factors associated with physical mistreatment in children under five years of age performed by their mothers.

Methods:

We carried out an observational study based on the secondary analysis of the data from the 2017 National Survey of Health and Demography (ENDES, as it stands in Spanish for Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Demografía). The sample consisted of 13,565 children under the age of five. Chi square and the P value were calculated, together with the crude odds ratio (ORc) and its 95% confidence interval.

Results:

There was a lower risk of mistreatment in children under the age of five who lived in the jungle, when the mother’s husband or partner lived in the house and when there was psychological or physical violence against the woman. There was an increased risk of physical abuse when the mothers spoke Aymara or another indigenous or native language, when the couple had secondary or higher education, or when the woman attacked her partner.

Conclusions:

Physical violence against children under five years of age was more likely when the mother was exposed to stressful situations, possibly mediated by the conditions of economic vulnerability or poverty that she lives through, especially when she had indigenous roots and lived on the coast, all this exacerbated by the inability to solve problems that ultimately lead to violence, even against the husband or partner.

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