TY - JOUR
T1 - Children exposed to intimate partner violence
T2 - Identifying differential effects of family environment on children's trauma and psychopathology symptoms through regression mixture models
AU - McDonald, Shelby Elaine
AU - Shin, Sunny
AU - Corona, Rosalie
AU - Maternick, Anna
AU - Graham-Bermann, Sandra A.
AU - Ascione, Frank R.
AU - Herbert Williams, James
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by Grant 5R01-HD-66503-4 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and Grant 2015-0709 from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or ASPCA. This paper was presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Work and Research in January 2016 in Washington, DC. The authors would like to thank the community-based domestic violence advocates for their contribution to this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2016/8/1
Y1 - 2016/8/1
N2 - The majority of analytic approaches aimed at understanding the influence of environmental context on children's socioemotional adjustment assume comparable effects of contextual risk and protective factors for all children. Using self-reported data from 289 maternal caregiver-child dyads, we examined the degree to which there are differential effects of severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, yearly household income, and number of children in the family on posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and psychopathology symptoms (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems) among school-age children between the ages of 7-12 years. A regression mixture model identified three latent classes that were primarily distinguished by differential effects of IPV exposure severity on PTS and psychopathology symptoms: (1) asymptomatic with low sensitivity to environmental factors (66% of children), (2) maladjusted with moderate sensitivity (24%), and (3) highly maladjusted with high sensitivity (10%). Children with mothers who had higher levels of education were more likely to be in the maladjusted with moderate sensitivity group than the asymptomatic with low sensitivity group. Latino children were less likely to be in both maladjusted groups compared to the asymptomatic group. Overall, the findings suggest differential effects of family environmental factors on PTS and psychopathology symptoms among children exposed to IPV. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
AB - The majority of analytic approaches aimed at understanding the influence of environmental context on children's socioemotional adjustment assume comparable effects of contextual risk and protective factors for all children. Using self-reported data from 289 maternal caregiver-child dyads, we examined the degree to which there are differential effects of severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, yearly household income, and number of children in the family on posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and psychopathology symptoms (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems) among school-age children between the ages of 7-12 years. A regression mixture model identified three latent classes that were primarily distinguished by differential effects of IPV exposure severity on PTS and psychopathology symptoms: (1) asymptomatic with low sensitivity to environmental factors (66% of children), (2) maladjusted with moderate sensitivity (24%), and (3) highly maladjusted with high sensitivity (10%). Children with mothers who had higher levels of education were more likely to be in the maladjusted with moderate sensitivity group than the asymptomatic with low sensitivity group. Latino children were less likely to be in both maladjusted groups compared to the asymptomatic group. Overall, the findings suggest differential effects of family environmental factors on PTS and psychopathology symptoms among children exposed to IPV. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
KW - Adjustment
KW - Children
KW - Intimate partner violence
KW - Resilience
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U2 - 10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.06.010
DO - 10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.06.010
M3 - Article
C2 - 27337691
AN - SCOPUS:84975297430
SN - 0145-2134
VL - 58
SP - 1
EP - 11
JO - Child Abuse and Neglect
JF - Child Abuse and Neglect
ER -