Risk factors for child psychological abuse

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Abstract

We review the risk and protective factors for child emotional abuse. Two main directions can be derived from this review. First and foremost, definitional issues must be resolved. Second, some clues as to important future research directions emerged from the current risk factor literature. Distal historical variables (e.g., relationships with fathers perceived as less caring, and being yelled at daily as a child), current enduring personality factors (e.g., aggression and hostility, neuroticism), environmental stressors (e.g., very low income) and proximal variables (verbal and physical aggression between parents) all appear to be related to child psychological abuse. Once definitional issues are resolved, models beginning with these risk factors should be developed and tested.

Section snippets

Method

The studies included in this review met the following criteria: (a) were published in a psychological, medical, sociological journal or book, (b) provided enough statistical information that the information could be meaningfully analyzed (e.g., conducted statistical analyses comparing abused versus non-abused groups, provided more information than statistical significance levels), (c) employed either a representative community sample or a clinical sample with an appropriate control group (i.e.,

Socio-demographic variables

More research has been devoted to investigating the relation between demographic variables and child psychological abuse than any other variables. Our most comprehensive knowledge of the relations of demographic characteristics to child psychological abuse comes from Sedlak's (1997) multivariate analyses of the Second National Incidence Survey (NIS-2). Sedlak found that risk for child psychological abuse increases as age increases. Children from lower-income families (i.e., family income below

Child characteristics

Vissing et al. (1991), in their nationally representative sample of 3346 families, found that child aggression (e.g., physical fights with other children), child delinquency (e.g., vandalism), and child interpersonal problems (e.g., trouble making friends) were significantly associated with the child being psychologically abused. Effect size for these relations could not be calculated.

Parental adjustment

Lesnik-Oberstein et al. (1995) compared psychologically abusive Dutch mothers (n=44) and non-abusive mothers (n=128) on measures of psychiatric symptoms, aggression/hostility, several dimensions of personality, social activity, verbal reasoning ability, and physical health. The psychologically abusive mothers reported more dysthymic symptoms (r=0.21), neurotic symptoms (r=0.24), and aggression and hostility (r=0.37) than did non-abusive mothers. On personality measures, the psychologically

Marital relationship variables

Lesnik-Oberstein et al. (1995) compared psychologically abusive and non-abusive Dutch mothers on a variety of marital relationship measures. These variables included marital affection, marital power, partner physical aggression, and partner verbal aggression. Psychologically abusive mothers reported receiving less affection from their husbands (r=0.17) and giving less affection to their husbands (r=0.15) than did non-abusive mothers. Further, psychologically abusive, compared to non-abusive,

Conclusion

The conclusions that can be drawn from this review are limited for several reasons. First, these conclusions are based on a limited body of research. Second, many of these findings are based on data from unstandardized measures to assess the risk factors for child psychological abuse. Further, the field has not achieved consensus on the best way to define and measure the construct of child psychological abuse.

Two main directions can be derived from this review. First and foremost, definitional

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the partnership of (a) the US Air Force Family Advocacy Program and (b) the US Department of Agriculture National Network on Family Resilience (contract CR-4953-545735).

Thanks to Col. John Nelson (director of US Air Force Family Advocacy Program) and to the outgoing USAF-FAP research director, Lt. Col. Carla A. Monroe-Posey (ret.) for supporting these reviews. Thanks also to our USDA-NNFR project administrators, Drs. Craig Allen (Iowa State) and Sandra Stith (Virginia

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