Citation

Litrownik AJ, Newton R, Hunter WM, English D, Everson MD. J. Fam. Violence 2003; 18(1): 59-73.

Affiliation

Dept of Psychology, San Diego State Univ and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, San Diego, California; Department of Sociology, California State Univ, Fullerton, California; Dept of Social Medicine, Univ of North Carolina, Chapel Hil

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1023/A:1021405515323

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examines the contribution of specific types of family violence exposure (e.g., victim vs. witness; physical vs. psychological) to aggressive and anxious/depressed problem behaviors in young (i.e., 6-year-old) at-risk children. This multisite prospective study of 682 children from four different regions of the country asked mothers and their 6-year-old children to report on violence exposure in their families. After controlling for mother reports of child problem behaviors on the Child Behavior Checklist at Age 4, it was found that subsequent exposure to family violence predicted reported problem behaviors at Age 6. Although mothers' report of child victimization predicted subsequent problem behaviors, witnessed violence was related to these problems only when both mothers and children reported its occurrence. The results of this study suggest that even though there was a relationship between witnessed and directly experienced family violence, both had independent, noninteractive effects on subsequent behavior problems.