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.
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Hughes, H.M., Parkinson, D. & Vargo, M. Witnessing spouse abuse and experiencing physical abuse: A “double whammy”?. J Fam Viol 4, 197–209 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01006629
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01006629