Citation

Noble-Carr D, Moore T, McArthur M. Trauma Violence Abuse 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Australian Catholic University, Canberra, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1524838019888885

PMID

31793402

Abstract

Domestic violence is a significant issue experienced by many children that can have a detrimental impact on their health, development, and well-being. This article reports on the findings of a meta-synthesis that examined the nature and extent of qualitative studies conducted with children about their experience of domestic violence. Studies were identified by a search of electronic databases and included gray literature. Studies were included for review if they were published between 1996 and 2016, were from countries considered as comparable Western nations to Australia and available in the English language, and reported on qualitative studies that directly engaged with children under the age of 18 years on their experiences of intimate partner violence involving one or more of their parents/carers. Forty peer-reviewed publications that reported on 32 studies were included for the review. This study was unique in that it included child participation measures to assess the quality of available studies. This article explores the contribution that research with children has made to our understandings of, and responses to, domestic violence, and provides a critique of the limitations and gaps evident in the extant qualitative research with children on the issue of domestic violence. The article considers implications for future research, policy, and practice and in particular focuses our attention on the need to engage more children more fully in participatory research in the field of domestic violence.

Language: en

Keywords

children; domestic violence; interpersonal partner violence; meta-synthesis; qualitative research