Lifetime and past-year prevalence of children's exposure to violence in 9 Balkan countries: the BECAN study.

Background: Children's exposure to violence is a major public health issue. The Balkan epidemiological study on Child Abuse and Neglect project aimed to collect internationally comparable data on violence exposures in childhood.

Methods: A three stage stratified random sample of 42,194 school-attending children (response rate: 66.