Citation

Grasso DJ, Petitclerc A, Henry DB, McCarthy KJ, Wakschlag LS, Briggs-Gowan MJ. J. Trauma. Stress 2016; 29(6): 491-499.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/jts.22147

PMID

27859679

Abstract

Young children can experience violence directly or indirectly in the home, with some children exposed to multiple forms of violence. These polyvictims often experience violence that is severe, chronic, and multifaceted. The current study used latent class analysis to identify and examine the pattern of profiles of exposure to family violence (i.e., violence directed towards the child and between caregivers) among a sample of 474 children ages 3-6 year who were drawn from the Multidimensional Assessment of Preschoolers Study (Wakschlag et al., ). The data yielded 3 classes: a polyvictimized class (n = 72; 15.2%) with high probability of exposure to all forms of violence, a harsh parenting class (n = 235; 49.5%), distinguished mainly by child-directed physical discipline in the absence of more severe forms of violence, and a low-exposure class (n = 167; 35.2%). Classes were differentiated by contextual factors, maternal characteristics, and mother-reported and observational indicators of parenting and child functioning with most effect sizes between medium and large. These findings add to emerging evidence linking polyvictimization to impaired caregiving and adverse psychological outcomes for children and offer important insight for prevention and intervention for this vulnerable population.

Copyright © 2016 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Language: en