UW School of Medicine Online News

Vol. 7, No. 47
December 12, 2003

Mother’s abuse by partner leads to behavioral problems in children

Children exposed to their mother’s abuse by an intimate partner are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems, such as delinquency or aggression, investigators at the UW, including some based at Harborview Medical Center, found. The investigators at the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center studied children whose mothers were victims of police-reported or court-reported intimate partner violence between Oct. 15, 1997, and Dec. 31, 1998.

The researchers, led by Mary Kernic, assistant professor of epidemiology, used a checklist to compare children exposed to intimate partner violence to a control group. The Child Behavior Checklist is a form on which parents or other individuals close to the child rate problem behaviors and competencies. Parents circled items that measured the degree to which their child had exhibited specific behaviors during the past six months.

They found that children who had been exposed to their mother’s abuse were 60 percent more likely to exhibit externalizing behavior problems, such as aggressiveness or delinquency, and 40 percent more likely to have an elevated total behavioral problem score. Children who were not only exposed to their mother’s abuse but were also victims of child abuse fared even worse. These children were two and a half times more likely to exhibit internalizing behavior, such as being depressed or anxious, three times as likely to exhibit externalizing problems, and two times more likely to have an elevated total score.

Previous studies have suggested similar results but many of these studies are weakened by methodological problems. Some studies did not control for, or examine, the separate effects of child abuse, which is strongly associated with the occurrence of parental intimate partner violence. Other studies examined children who stayed in battered women’s shelters, where disruptions in the environment may be responsible for their behavioral problems.

Also participating in the study were Victoria Holt, professor of epidemiology; Barbara McKnight, professor of biostatistics; Colleen Huebner, associate professor of health services; Fred Rivara, professor of pediatrics and adjunct professor of epidemiology; and Marsha Wolf, formerly of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center.


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