Publikationen

Fathers, mothers and family violence:

Liel, Christoph/Walper, Sabine
Fathers, mothers and family violence:. Which risk factors contribute to child maltreatment and domestic violence in early childhood?
International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Prague "Kongress." 05.09.2018
Family violence in early childhood has strong impact on negative developmental outcomes. There is evidence of child, parental and family risk factors (Stith et al., 2009). Less is known about paternal than maternal risk factors. This longitudinal in-depth study was conducted as a part of Children in Germany aged 0-3 (KiD 0-3) prevalence studies on psychosocial family burdens. In 197 families both mothers and fathers (n=197/191) were investigated twice within seven months. Families with a target child aged 11-14 or 17-21 month were stratified in a low, medium and high risk group based on caregivers report in a larger representative study used for screening purposes. Emotional and behavioral child problems, parental risk factors and family violence were assessed by self-report measures. Based on a systematic review on risk factors (Kuntz et al., 2013) parents psychopathology, stress, couple distress, parental role distribution and dissatisfaction, parenting problems (low parenting self-efficacy, insensitivity in recognition of the child’s emotions, child abuse potential including rigidity and anger) and parents adverse childhood experiences were examined. Family violence since child birth was measured by a 6-item scale adapted from Juvenile Victimzation Questionnaire (Finkelhor et al., 2005). Violence rates at follow-up examination were 10,4% in low, 24,4% in medium and 27,5% in high risk group. Child emotional or behavioral problems were twice as high in families with violence report from any parent than in families without violence (31,3% vs. 15,3%). Differential predictors of violence were found in mothers and fathers at baseline. Data will be presented by multivariate analyses and Prediction Configural Frequency Analyses (von Eye, 2002). Considering both caregivers in a small population sample with oversampled at-risk families yielded new findings regarding maternal and paternal risk factors for family violence. Results that will be presented are highly relevant for early prevention in child maltreatment.