engleski

Childhood trauma as a predictor of risk for child abuse perpetrated by mothers

The aim of study was to assess the contribution of mothers’ traumatic childhood experiences with family violence, stress-related current life events, relationship with the partner, current stress and quality of support to the risk of violence toward children. The sample included 486 mothers of 13-year-old children of both genders. The instruments used for examining the predictors were designed for the purpose of this study, while the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (Milner, 1986) was used to measure risk of violence toward children. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that all blocks of predictors contributed significantly and explained 49% of variance of child abuse potential. In the final step of the analysis, the quality of partner relationships proved to be the most important predictor, but other current life events, support and financial situation, as well as childhood exposure to violence, were also predictive of the risk for current child abuse. On the other hand, socio-demographic variables such as mother’s age or the child’s gender were not predictive of the criterion. Contribution of specific predictors to better understanding of the child abuse potential and the implications of these findings will be discussed in the presentation.

child abuse potential; family violence; stress; support

nije evidentirano