engleski

Predicting Child Abuse Potential: The Role of Social Support in Times of Economic Hardship

Introduction: Social support, according to Social Support Deterioration Deterrence Model, serves as protective factor in the interaction between negative life events, stress and mental health. In this study, we explored the role of children’s characteristics and economic hardship in predicting the mothers’ potential for child abuse with a focus on social support to mothers as a protective factor. Methods: The study was conducted on 541 pairs of 1st grade high-school students (Mage=15.09, SDage=0.426) and their mothers, from the probabilistic stratified cluster sample from 6 counties in Croatia. We used measures of individual characteristics of mothers (education, economic status, stress events), child's psychological characteristics (NEO-FFI, Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale DASS-21, intelligence test TN- 10) and behavioral characteristics (school absenteeism, academic grade-point average, risk behaviors), social support and the child abuse potential (CAPI). Results: Multiple regression model was used to determine the effects of individual characteristics of mothers, the child's psychological and behavioral characteristics and social support to mothers for the child abuse potential. The model explained 40.6% of the criterion. Mother’s individual characteristics explained 28.3%, child's psychological characteristics 0.8%, child’s behavioral characteristics had no contribution, while social support explained 11.5% of the risk of child abuse in this model. Discussion: Findings indicate that the context variables were more important predictors of the mother’s potential for child abuse than the children’s characteristics. These findings underline the importance of studying social context of children's environment regarding the child abuse potential and emphasize the role of social support as potential focus of community services

Economic Hardship, Social Support, Child Abuse Potential

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