Citation

Hughes HM, Parkinson D, Vargo M. J. Fam. Violence 1989; 4(2): 197-209.

Affiliation

University of Arkansas, 72701 Fayetteville, Arkansas

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF01006629

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Child witnesses to parental violence, both abused (N =40) and nonabused (N =44), who were temporarily residing in a battered women's shelter were compared with children from a similar economic background (N =66) on measures of anxiety, depression, and behavior problems. Mothers of the three groups of children (comparison, witness, abused/witness) across the age range from 4 to 12 years completed a behavior problem inventory; the youngsters responded to paper-and-pencil self-report measures. Results indicated that the abused/witness children were manifesting significantly more distress on the behavior problem measure than the comparison youngsters, with the witness children showing a moderate amount and the comparison children the least. However, these patterns were mediated by the age of the child. Implications of these differential findings are discussed.