Citation

Brown EJ, Kolko DJ. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 1999; 27(4): 311-322.

Affiliation

Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York 10029, USA. elissa_brown@mssm.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10503648

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine a conceptual attributional model for the development of psychopathology after child physical abuse. Physically abused or maltreated children referred for treatment completed a series of measures to assess parent-to-child violence, abuse-specific attributions and general attributional style, other potential predictors, and children's psychopathology. Results revealed that the severity of current parent-to-child violence was associated with children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Attributions predicted the level of children's psychopathology beyond the variance accounted for by the severity of parent-to-child violence. The severity of parent-to-child violence, attributions about the abuse, general attributional style, and level of family functioning accounted for 28%-63% of the variance in children's abuse-specific, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms. Implications of the findings and research recommendations are discussed.

Language: en