Citation

Kotch JB, Thomas LP. J. Fam. Violence 1986; 1(2): 167-179.

Affiliation

Departments of Maternal and Child Health and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27514 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00977251

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

One hundred fifty-nine families who were reported for child abuse or neglect to a country social services agency in a single fiscal year were studied empirically to test the ecological model of child abuse and neglect. Several family and social factors were studied. Only two, size of family and stage in family developmental cycle, were significantly associated with an increased risk of substantiation of the report. Two potential sources of social support, the use of regular child care and the presence of an extended family member, were tested for their effect on substantiation in those cases where risk factors such as the two mentioned above and combinations of risk factors such as single parenthood and unemployed head of household were associated with higher rates of substantiation. In every case, these two examples of social support reduced the substantiation rate. The influence of the use of regular child care was especially strong in mitigating the effect of the family and social risk factors.