Abstract

Objective: Childhood masturbation is becoming increasingly common in clinical practice, though, studies to date on this subject have been quite limited in the literature. To address this, we aimed to contribute the literature by examining clinical and sociodemographic aspects associated with childhood masturbation and by identifying predisposing factors that lead to it.


Material and Methods: The files of 29 patients aged between 0-8 years who were admitted to the Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Diseases of Sivas Cumhuriyet University between the dates 01.01.2019 and 01.01.2020 with the complaint of showing genital self-stimulation were examined retrospectively. Their sociodemographic and clinical data and the predisposing factors related with childhood masturbation were analyzed with SPSS Version 20 statistical package program.


Results: The percentage of females in the total study population was 72.4%; whereas the percentage of males was 27.6%. The median ages were 61.0 months and 60.0 months for females and for males, respectively. The median age at onset of masturbation was 24.0 months in females and it was 36.0 months in males. The vast majority of the children in the study were from a middle or high income family. At least one predisposing factor for masturbation was present in 72.9% of children, where the leading factor was genitourinary infections.

Conclusion: As a result of our study, we found that although the majority of the parents had high sociocultural background, they applied to a physician on average 24 months after the appearance of masturbation behavior in their children. This supports the view that masturbation is still considered as a taboo topic among parents.

Keywords: Child, Etiyology, Masturbation

References

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How to cite

1.
Sarı SA, Uzun Çiçek A. Sociodemographic and Clinical Features of Cases with Childhood Masturbation. Turk J Pediatr Dis [Internet]. 2020 Nov. 30 [cited 2025 May 24];14(6):500-6. Available from: https://turkjpediatrdis.org/article/view/647