Overlap of Witnessing Partner Violence with Child Maltreatment and Other Victimizations in a Nationally Representative Survey of Youth

• NCJ Number: 232723
• Journal: Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 34 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2010 Pages: 734-741
• Author(s): Sherry Hamby; David Finkelhor; Heather Turner; Richard Ormrod
• Date Published: October 2010
• Length: 8 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2006-JW-BX-0003
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP); US Dept of Health & Human Services
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the prevalence of the co-occurrence of a child's witnessing partner violence and child maltreatment and other forms of victimization, using data from the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), a nationally representative telephone survey of the victimization experiences of 4,549 youth ages 0-17.

Abstract

The study found that witnessing partner violence (WPV) was closely associated with several forms of maltreatment and exposure to other forms of family violence, with adjusted odds ratio (OR) ranging from 3.88 to 9.15. WPV was also significantly associated with a wide variety of other forms of victimization, with OR ranging from 1.43 to 7.32. Just over one-third (33.9 percent) of the youth who witnessed partner violence had also been maltreated in the past year, compared with 8.6 percent of non-witnesses. For lifetime data, 56.8 percent of WPV youth had also been maltreated. Neglect and custodial interference were most closely associated with WPV. These findings provide new urgency to recommendations for better integration of services to children in homes where adults have received interventions for intimate partner violence; for example, a needs assessment should be conducted for children residing in domestic violence shelters, and adults involved in child abuse cases should be screened for domestic violence. In the NatSCEV, an adult caregiver (usually a parent) was interviewed in each household in order to obtain family demographic information. One child was randomly selected from all eligible children in a household by identifying the child with the most recent birthday. If the selected child was 10-17 years old (46 percent of completed interviews), the main telephone interview was conducted with the child. Otherwise, the interview was conducted with the caregiver who was most familiar with the child's daily routine and experiences. 4 tables and 26 references