Citation

Smith KZ, Smith PH, Oberleitner LM, Grekin ER, McKee SA. Child Maltreat. 2018; 23(3): 234-243.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077559517751669

PMID

29347837

Abstract

Past studies examining the child maltreatment (CM)/victimization pathway have been limited by their focus on sexual victimization, narrow windows of assessment, and failure to examine gender differences. In the current study, we sought to examine (1) the impact of CM on physical victimization (PV) trajectories from adolescence to young adulthood and (2) the extent to which heavy drinking mediated the relationship between CM and later PV. Using three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we found that CM was associated with a 69% greater odds of later PV for both genders, after the inclusion of control variables, and that the risk continued into adulthood. Further, heavy drinking was found to mediate the CM/victimization pathway at Wave I, but not at later waves. When mediation was examined separately for men and women, support for mediation was found for men and women. The current study suggests that CM represents a liability for interpersonal violence for both genders and highlights the importance of looking at victimization across time.

Language: en

Keywords

child maltreatment; exposure to violence; longitudinal research; multilevel models; repeat victimization; substance abuse