Citation

Briere J, Runtz M, Eadie EM, Bigras N, Godbout N. Child Abuse Negl. 2017; 67: 260-270.

Affiliation

University of Quebec at Montreal, Departments of Sexology and Psychology, 455 René Levesque East, Montreal, QC, H2L 4Y2, Canada. Electronic address: godbout.natacha@uqam.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.02.036

PMID

28284895

Abstract

Based on attachment theory, we hypothesized that self-reported childhood experiences of disengaged parenting (DP) would predict adults' psychological symptoms even more than, on average, childhood sexual, physical, or psychological abuse. In a large (N=640) university sample, bootstrapped multiple regression analyses indicated that although various forms of child maltreatment were correlated with symptomatology at the univariate level, DP was the primary multivariate predictor. Structural equation modeling indicated significant direct paths from (a) DP to both nonsexual child maltreatment and sexual abuse, (b) DP and nonsexual child maltreatment to insecure attachment, and (c) sexual abuse and insecure attachment to symptomatology. There were significant indirect effects of DP on psychological symptoms through sexual and nonsexual abuse, as well as through attachment. These results suggest that although child abuse has direct and indirect impacts on psychological symptoms, exposure to DP may be especially detrimental, both by increasing the risk of child abuse and by virtue of its impacts on attachment insecurity. They also support the potential use of attachment-oriented intervention in the treatment of adults maltreated as children.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Attachment; Child abuse; Disengaged parenting; Structural equation modeling