NCJ Number
161762
Journal
Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Dated: (1995) Pages: 1-15
Date Published
1995
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Perpetrators of elder abuse (n=23) and child abuse (n=21) reported on violent behaviors experienced during their childhoods.
Abstract
The article first reviews existing research on the intergenerational transmission of child and elder abuse and then describes the methodology used in the current study. In this study, the Violence Scale of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) was administered to adult offspring who had physically abused a parent more than 60 years of age as well as to parents who had physically abused a child between 2 and 5 years old. Inclusion in the sample was limited to physical violence to avoid definitional problems of both the child and elder abuse literatures. The Violence Scale of the CTS was used in this study. It is divided into the "overall" and "severe" violence indices. The "overall" violence index includes all forms of physically violent behaviors, from throwing something at another person to the use of weapons. The "severe" violence index is restricted to the more serious and dangerous acts of violence. Chi-square analyses of the indices and individual items in the CTS Violence Scale were undertaken to determine whether child abusing parents and elder abusing adult offspring differed in their experience of family violence as children. Findings show that elder abusing adult offspring and child abusing parents did not differ significantly in their experience of "overall" violence as children; however, child abusing parents were significantly more likely than elder abusing adult offspring to have experienced "severe" violence in their childhoods. These results suggest that although intergenerational transmission of family violence is not an inevitable process, it is a more useful construct for explaining violence toward children than violence toward elder parents. 2 figures and 48 references