Mental health of children exposed to intimate partner violence against their mother: A longitudinal study from Brazil

Abstract

Background: Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important adverse childhood experience, but there are few longitudinal studies in low and middle-income countries.Objective: To investigate the consequences of exposure to IPV for the child's mental health.Participants and Setting: 614 mother-child pairs were evaluated in a poor urban district in Recife, northeastern Brazil. Methods: A prospective cohort study enrolled pregnant women in 2005-2006. Women were interviewed in pregnancy, postpartum and six to nine years after delivery, and asked about their experience of IPV, and the exposure of their child to violence. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was completed by child's mother and teacher. Ten types of child experience of IPV and the age of onset of exposure were compared with the child's behavioral profile at school age.Results: The commonest types of child exposure to IPV were "prenatally", "overheard" "eyewitnessed";10.0% of children were physically or verbally involved in the IPV. Mothers reported high SDQ Total Difficulties scores in 71.7% of all children exposed to IPV and teachers in 59.8%. Multivariate analyses demonstrated associations between exposures to IPV with SDQ scores. The strongest association with behavioral difficulties was with exposure in the age group 1-2 years (OR 2.5 [95% CI: 1.3-4.8]). Conclusions:Young children are sensitive to the age of first exposure to IPV and to the type of IPV. Interventions to reduce IPV should be targeted on vulnerable women from poor urban communities during their pregnancies and in the first two years of their child's life.

Intimate Partner Violence Exposure and Adolescent Mental Health Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Housing Insecurity

“…In a departure from prior research (Kaslow & Thompson, 2008; Merrick et al, 2017; Silva et al, 2019), the present study did not find a direct link from IPV exposure to anxious or depressive symptoms. This may be explained by the developmental period over which the present study unfolded (early childhood through adolescence) or the particular outcomes assessed (symptoms of anxiety and depression).…”

Social comorbidities? A qualitative study mapping syndemic theory onto gender-based violence and co-occurring social phenomena among Brazilian women

“…In Brazil, adverse childhood experiences are common. As many as 60% of children in one study witnessed violence against their mothers as children [ 28 ]. Women in Brazil are more likely to have experienced childhood abuse than men [ 29 ], which highlights one way adverse childhood experiences overlap with gender-based violence more broadly.…”

Role of Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being on Transmission of Domestic Violence

“…According to previous research, individuals who were witnessed or been directly exposed to violence in childhood developed psychological and behavioral problems (López-Soler et al, 2017;MacDonell, 2012). Specifically, there was a high risk for anxiety, depression, stress, and trauma (Boeckel et al, 2017;Lyold, 2018;Silva et al, 2019), lower performance at school (McDonald et al, 2016), and behavioral problems including hostility, aggression, and delinquency for these children (Lyold, 2018;Paterson et al, 2008). Additionally, previous longitudinal studies claimed that the harmful effects of exposure to DV in childhood continued to manifest in adulthood (Cater et al, 2015;Genç et al, 2018;Miller-Graff et al, 2016).…”