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Abstract
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Adolescents who run away from home frequently give many reasons for their behavior, but rarely has an examination of physical maltreatment as a precipitating factor for leaving home been carefully conducted. The Conflict Tactics Scale, a measure of how families resolve conflicts, was completed by 199 adolescents who ran away to a youth shelter. Some 78% of the adolescents self-reported significant physical violence directed toward themselves by a parent in the one year prior to their running away. There were no significant effects of age or sex on the amount of physical violence. A comparison between runaway adolescents and adolescents labeled abused reveals no significant differences in at-risk child abuse scores. An argument is presented for crisis counselors and youth shelter workers to more carefully examine and treat family violence in adolescents who run.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this study by Farber et al. was to examine the role of physical maltreatment as a precipitating stress factor for adolescents running away from home.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors employed a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design with a non-probability sample of 199 adolescents, from ages 12 to 28, receiving assistance at a runaway shelter in Columbus, Ohio during a six-month period in 1981. Subjects were interviewed and completed the Conflict Tactics Scale to assess three methods of conflict resolution - verbal reasoning, verbal aggression and violent behavior. The authors also used Gelles' (1979) "at risk" child abuse index, which combined the following four items: being kicked, bitten or hit with the fist; being hit with something; being beaten up; or use of a knife or a gun, all within one year before the adolescent ran away. Any one of these acts could potentially cause much harm to the victim, and the occurrence of one act placed the child at risk. Each act had six levels of chronicity, from happening only once to happening more than twenty times. Analysis included frequencies and ANOVA.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The researchers found that 78% of the subjects had an at-risk child abuse score of at least 1, with a mean score of 5.35. An analysis of variance found no significant interactions on child abuse scores by age and by sex. The authors concluded that there existed a substantial amount of violence directed at children who run away, and while the relationship might not be a causal one, violence directed at these people was a significant factor in the decision to leave home.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors recommended that the various support services that are currently available to those children who are abused should be expanded to include those children who run away from home. Counselors and youth shelter staff should be trained in appropriate methods of assessing violent conflict resolution, and the issue of abuse in the home must be addressed before the individual can be expected to return.
EVALUATION:
This study presents an interesting glimpse at the issue of violence in families of adolescent runaways. However, the authors barely scratched the surface of the issues at hand - more variables could have been included in the analysis to investigate the roles of other factors that might influence a person's decision to run. With a more thorough investigation of the phenomenon, more policy and prevention implications could have been suggested. While the sample size and the analyses were appropriate for the study, a much more detailed and thorough piece of research would have been more helpful in our understanding of the problem. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
N1 - Call Number: F-102, AB-102
KW - Ohio
KW - Child Abuse Effects
KW - Child Abuse Victim
KW - Child Physical Abuse Effects
KW - Child Physical Abuse Victim
KW - Child Victim
KW - Juvenile Victim
KW - Juvenile Runaway
KW - Runaway Causes
KW - Domestic Violence Effects
KW - Domestic Violence Victim
Language: en |