Citation

Straus MA. Child Abuse Negl. 1980; 4(2): 75-88.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1980, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Data from a nationally representative sample of 1,146 families with a child age 3-17 at home are used to test the theory that stress is associated with child abuse only under certain conditions. The measure of stress is a modification of the Holmes-Rahe scale. The measure of child abuse was whether during the previous year the parent had punched, kicked, bit, hit the child with an object, "beat up" the child or attacked the child with a knife or gun. The findings show that the child abuse rate increases as the number of Stressors experienced during the year increased. This applies to abuse by both fathers and mothers. Mothers were more abusive under normal conditions, but under high stress their rate did not increase as much as that of the fathers. The theory that stress does not necessarily lead to assault was tested by introducing as controls a number of variables thought to play a part in establishing a linkage. Among these were growing up in a family in which one could observe and role-model violence, low attachment to the marriage, male dominance in the marriage, and isolation from informal social networks which could help resolve or control family problems. The results were generally consistent with this theory. It is suggested that if conditions such as those represented by the control variables are present, stress is related to child abuse. If these conditions are not present, the relation between stress and child abuse is absent or minimal.