Matched trauma: The role of parents' and children's shared history of childhood domestic violence exposure in parents' report of children's trauma-related symptomatology

Relational dynamics associated with adolescent and young adult (13 to 23 years of age) partner violence: The role of inter-parental violence and child abuse

PURPOSE

The study aimed to examine the effect of witnessing inter-parental violence and experiencing childhood abuse on victimization of intimate partner violence (IPV) after marriage among adolescent and young girls.

METHOD

Data were drawn from the second wave of the Understanding the lives of adolescents and young adults (UDAYA) survey (2018-2019). The sample size was 5480 married adolescent and young girls aged 13-23 years. The outcome variable of the study was the victimization of IPV. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were performed.

RESULT

A total of 39% of married adolescent and young girls experienced physical violence, followed by sexual violence (35%) and emotional violence (28%) by their partner. Around 30% of respondents witnessed inter-parental violence, and 32% of the participants were beaten by their parents during childhood. Participants who had witnessed inter-parental violence were significantly correlated with experiencing childhood abuse, and this association was positively correlated with exposure to IPV in adolescence and young adulthood. Further, the parameter estimates of the indicators of IPV were highest for emotional violence (1.10) followed by physical violence (1.00) and sexual violence (0.62). Witnessing inter-parental violence significantly increases parents' physical violence to adolescents and young adult girls (β = 0.49, P<0.001, CI: 0.47-0.51). No tie between witnessing inter-parental violence and childhood abuse mediates their effect on later victimization of IPV.

CONCLUSION

The findings indicate that witnessing inter-parental violence is a strong risk factor for IPV victimization among adolescent and young adult girls. Our findings advocate prerequisite collaborative effort with multiple service providers for greater empowerment at national, state, community, and family levels to achieve SDG goals pertaining to eliminating violence against women.

Professional Quality of Life of Foster and Kinship Carers in Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States: A Scoping Review

Professional quality of life (ProQOL) refers to workers' subjective feelings associated with work involved in helping others who have experienced trauma. It consists of positive and negative aspects, that is, subscales of compassion satisfaction, and burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Foster and kinship caring inherently involves risks associated with exposure to the trauma responses of children in their care. This exposure can lead to poor ProQOL, carer attrition, and placement instability. While limited studies specifically explore ProQOL of carers, many studies have examined factors and interventions related to ProQOL. However, there is a lack of synthesis of these studies. To fill such a research gap, we undertook a scoping review of 70 empirical studies from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, published from 2012 to 2022 reporting on ProQOL, and its related factors and concepts. We applied a multilevel ecosocial construct to examine complex interrelationships between private and governance settings to better understand factors related to ProQOL of carers and interventions aimed to improve it in these dynamic systems. In our review, some studies showed positive outcomes for carers, such as reduced stress or burnout associated with training. However, there was insufficient attention to factors associated with ProQOL at relational and sociopolitical levels. It is crucial to improve carers' ProQOL or well-being to ensure their retention and placement stability. Long-term systemic improvements require interventions across different levels of the system.

Intergenerational transmission and prevention of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

In recent years, research and practice on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have shifted from delineating effects of ACEs on adulthood health problems to preventing ACEs in children. Nonetheless, little attention has focused on how parents' own childhood experiences, adverse or positive, may influence the transmission of ACEs across generations. Children's risk for ACEs and potential for resilience may be linked to the early child-rearing experiences of their parents carried forward into parenting practices. Additionally, parents with multiple ACEs may have PTSD symptoms, an under-recognized mediator of risk in the intergenerational transmission of ACEs. Guided by developmental psychopathology and attachment theory with an emphasis on risk and resilience, we argue that a more comprehensive understanding of parents' childhood experiences is needed to inform prevention of ACEs in their children. Part I of this review applies risk and resilience concepts to pathways of intergenerational ACEs, highlighting parental PTSD symptoms as a key mediator, and promotive or protective processes that buffer children against intergenerational risk. Part II examines empirical findings indicating that parents' positive childhood experiences counteract intergenerational ACEs. Part III recommends clinically-sensitive screening of ACEs and positive childhood experiences in parents and children. Part IV addresses tertiary prevention strategies that mitigate intergenerational ACEs and promote positive parent-child relationships.

The Child Life Challenges Scale (CLCS): Associations of a Single-Item Rating of Global Child Adversity with Children's Total Life Stressors and Parent's Childhood Adversity

BACKGROUND

Although many existing measures tabulate specific risk factors to yield cumulative risk indices, there is a need for low-burden strategies to estimate general adversity exposure.

AIMS AND METHODS

This study introduces a brief, new measure of lifetime adversity, the Child Life Challenges Scale (CLCS), and examines its validity in a sample of parents and children residing in emergency housing. The CLCS comprises a single global item for rating cumulative life challenges utilizing either a paper-pencil scale or a sliding scale on a tablet. Parents are provided with anchor examples of mild and extreme challenges and asked to mark a location along the scale reflecting number and severity of challenges in their children's lives to date. Study participants included 99 parents and their 3- to 6-year-old children.

RESULTS

CLCS scores were moderately associated with children's parent-reported total life stressors, and these associations were robust to controls for parental history of adversity, parental distress, and family demographics. Control variables also did not moderate associations between CLCS scores and total life stressors, suggesting that the CLCS functions similarly across a range of sociodemographic risk. Paper-pencil and tablet versions showed similar convergent validity.

CONCLUSION

The CLCS shows promise as an efficient measure for estimating children's lifetime adversity with minimal parent or administrator burden.

Protective factors that buffer against the intergenerational transmission of trauma from mothers to young children: A replication study of angels in the nursery

This replication study examined protective effects of positive childhood memories with caregivers (“angels in the nursery”) against lifespan and intergenerational transmission of trauma. More positive, elaborated angel memories were hypothesized to buffer associations between mothers’ childhood maltreatment and their adulthood posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptoms, comorbid psychopathology, and children's trauma exposure. Participants were 185 mothers (M age = 30.67 years, SD = 6.44, range = 17–46 years, 54.6% Latina, 17.8% White, 10.3% African American, 17.3% other; 24% Spanish speaking) and children (M age = 42.51 months; SD = 15.95, range = 3–72 months; 51.4% male). Mothers completed the Angels in the Nursery Interview (Van Horn, Lieberman, & Harris, 2008), and assessments of childhood maltreatment, adulthood psychopathology, children's trauma exposure, and demographics. Angel memories significantly moderated associations between maltreatment and PTSD (but not depression) symptoms, comorbid psychopathology, and children's trauma exposure. For mothers with less positive, elaborated angel memories, higher levels of maltreatment predicted higher levels of psychopathology and children's trauma exposure. For mothers with more positive, elaborated memories, however, predictive associations were not significant, reflecting protective effects. Furthermore, protective effects against children's trauma exposure were significant only for female children, suggesting that angel memories may specifically buffer against intergenerational trauma from mothers to daughters.

Pathways from witnessing parental violence during childhood to involvement in intimate partner violence in adult life: The roles of depression and substance use

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS

The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of witnessing parental violence (WPV) during childhood and of current intimate partner violence (IPV) victimisation and aggression in a Brazilian sample, in order to verify pathways between WPV and involvement in IPV as an adult.

DESIGN AND METHODS

The mediating roles of substance use and depression were investigated. Data came from the Second Brazilian National Alcohol and Drugs Survey, a multi-cluster probabilistic household survey, which gathered information on the use of psychoactive substances, current depressive disorder, history of childhood direct and indirect exposure to domestic violence and IPV in a nationally representative sample. A subsample of 2120 individuals aged 14 years or older was analysed. Weighted prevalence rates, adjusted odds ratio and conditional path models were performed.

RESULTS

Being a victim of IPV was reported by 6% of the sample. Thus being, 4.1% reported being IPV perpetrators; these rates were 16.6% and 7.3%, respectively, among those who reported WPV (13%). WPV was associated with being a victim of IPV in adult life, but not with becoming a perpetrator, regardless of being a victim of physical violence during childhood. There was a direct effect of WPV on IPV mediated by depressive symptoms. Alcohol and cocaine consumption and age of drinking initiation mediated only when combined with depressive symptoms.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Intergenerational transmission models of IPV through exposure during childhood can help to explain the high rates of domestic violence in Brazil. Our findings provide evidence to implement targeted prevention strategies where they are needed most: the victims of premature adverse experiences. [Madruga CS, Viana MC, Abdalla RR, Caetano R, Laranjeira R. Pathways from witnessing parental violence during childhood to involvement in intimate partner violence in adult life: The roles of depression and substance use. Drug Alcohol Rev 2017;36:107-114].