Work

The Role of Parenting Stress in Young Children's Mental Health Functioning After Exposure to Family Violence

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: This study evaluates the associations of young children's exposure to family violence events, parenting stress, and children's mental health functioning. Caregivers provided data for 188 children ages 3 to 5 years attending Head Start programming. Caregivers reported 75% of children had experienced at least 1 type of trauma event, and 27% of children had experienced a family violence event. Child mental health functioning was significantly associated with family violence exposure after controlling for children's age, gender, household income, and other trauma exposure (β = .14, p = .033). Stress in the parenting role partially mediated the relationship between family violence exposure and young children's mental health functioning (β = .12, p = .015, 95% confidence interval [0.02, 0.21]). Interventions for young children exposed to family violence should address the needs of the child, as well as the caregiver while also building healthy parent-child relationships to facilitate positive outcomes in children faced with trauma.

Source: Journal of Traumatic Stress

DOI: 10.1002/jts.21842

Authors: Yvonne Humenay Roberts, Christina A. Campbell, Monette Ferguson, Cindy A. Crusto

Institution: Yale University

Language: English

Topic: Child Abuse and Trauma

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities