Behaviors of Children Who Are Exposed and Not Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: An Analysis of 330 Black, White, and Hispanic Children

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Objective. To compare the behaviors of black, white, and Hispanic children who were 18 months to 18 years of age and exposed to intimate partner violence with an age-and ethnically similar sample of children who were not exposed to violence and to compare both exposed and nonexposed children to normative samples.Methods. As part of a study on treatments for abused women in primary care public health clinics and Women, Infants and Children clinics in a large urban area, 258 abused mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) on 1 of their randomly selected children between the ages of 18 months and 18 years. An ethnically similar sample of 72 nonabused mothers also completed the CBCL. The CBCL is a standardized instrument that provides a parental report of the extent of a child's behavioral problems and social competencies. The CBCL consists of a form for children 18 months to 5 years and a version for ages 6 to 18 years. The CBCL is orally administered to a parent, who rates the presence and frequency of certain behaviors on a 3-point scale (0 ‫؍‬ not true, 1 ‫؍‬ somewhat or sometimes true, and 2 ‫؍‬ very true or often true). The time period is the last 6 months for the child 6 to 18 years of age and 2 months for the child 18 months to 5 years of age. Examples of behaviors for the child age 6 to 18 years include "gets in many fights," "truancy, skips school." Examples of behaviors for the child 18 months to 5 years of age include "cruel to animals," "physically attacks people," and "doesn't want to sleep alone." Both forms of the CBCL consist of 2 broadband factors of behavioral problems: internalizing and externalizing with mean scale scores for national normative samples as well as clinically referred and nonreferred samples of children. Internalizing behaviors include anxiety/depression, withdrawal, and somatic complaints. Externalizing behaviors include attention problems, aggressive behavior, and rule-breaking actions. Behavior scales yield a score of total behavioral problems. Scores are summed and then converted to normalized T scores. T scores >60 are within the borderline/clinical referral range-higher scores represent more deviant behavior. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) were used to determine whether children from abused mothers differed significantly in their internalizing behaviors, externalizing behaviors, and total behavior problems from children of nonabused mothers. One sample t tests were used to compare children from abused and nonabused mothers to the matched clinically referred and nonreferred normative sample. Four pair-wise comparisons were considered: 1) children from abused women to referred norm, 2) children from abused women to nonreferred norm, 3) children from nonabused women to referred norm, and 4) children from nonabused to nonreferred norm. The internal, external, and total behavior problem T scores were dichotomized into a referral status: nonreferred ‫؍‬ T score < 60, referred ‫؍‬ T score > 60. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe th...

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