Citation

Dursun OB, Sener MT, Esin IS, Ançi Y, Yalin Sapmaz S. J. Trauma Dissociation 2014; 15(5): 557-571.

Affiliation

a Assistant Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine , University of Ataturk , 25240 , Erzurum , Turkey.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15299732.2014.912713

PMID

24983655

Abstract

Work in the field of sexual abuse is extremely stressful and may arouse negative personal reactions. Although these secondary trauma effects were well described on a personal level, there is not enough evidence to understand if these professionals carry these effects to their homes, families, and offspring. This study aims to identify the effects of working with child abuse cases on the anxiety level, parenting styles, and children's well-being of childhood trauma workers. Forty-three health and legal system workers who work with abused children in any step of their process and who have children constitute the study group, and 66 control cases, each working in the same institution and having the same occupation as one of the participants from the study group and who have children but have not been working directly with children and child abuse cases, were included in the study. Participants were asked to fill out a sociodemographic form, the Parental Attitude Research Instrument, the state portion of the State-Trait Anxiety İnventory, and an age-appropriate form of the Child Behavior Checklist for each child they have. Professionals working with child abuse cases demonstrated significantly higher democratic parenting attitudes in the study. Law enforcement workers working with child abuse cases demonstrated strict and authoritarian parenting strategies, as well as democratic attitudes, more than their colleagues. There was not a statistically significant relationship between child abuse workers' anxiety level and their children's well-being with the control subjects.

Language: en