Multi‐type maltreatment and the long‐term adjustment of adults

Unique and Combined Contributions of Multiple Child Abuse Types and Abuse Severity to Adult Trauma Symptomatology

“…Nonetheless, as hypothesized, More specifically, the number of abuse types predicted trauma symptoms only in cases in which maltreatment was very severe. These results are consistent with prior studies that have separately underscored the relevance of severity of abuse (Mennen & Meadow, 1995) and number of abuse types (Arata et al, 2005;Clemmons et al, 2003;Higgins & McCabe, 2000) to long-term psychological functioning. However, the present findings extend past work by suggesting that number of abuse types may be relevant to adult trauma symptoms only in the context of higher than average severity.…”

“…Consistent with prior research (e.g., Higgins & McCabe, 2000;Trickett et al, 1997), number of abuse types and total maltreatment severity were independently associated with poorer psychological functioning. However, when examined relative to each other, only total severity emerged as a significant predictor of trauma symptoms.…”

Child Physical Abuse With and Without Other Forms of Maltreatment: Dysfunctionality Versus Dysnormality

“…With regard to dysfunctionality associated with physical abuse co-occurring with other forms of maltreatment (PA+), our results corroborate those of the three studies reviewed, which found that in such cases, the family and environment had serious shortcomings (Bath & Haapala, 1993;DiLauro, 2001;Hartley, 2002). Our findings also support the observations of other researchers who have studied co-occurrence without regard to the form of maltreatment (Daro, 1988;Higgins & McCabe, 2000). Research on maltreatment has already shown that maltreating families are obviously dysfunctional in many ways (Harter, 1998).…”

“…Similarly, such children and their parental figures seem to have more physical and mental health problems. These results corroborate those reported by Daro (1988) and Higgins and McCabe (2000) (who distinguished between forms of abuse that occurred alone and cases of co-occurrence but without specifying the different forms of maltreatment): multitype maltreatment seems to be associated with families that have more problems.…”

Child Maltreatment and Women’s Adult Sexual Risk Behavior: Childhood Sexual Abuse as a Unique Risk Factor

“…Consistent with findings from other studies, participants reporting one type of CM frequently reported experiencing at least one other type of CM (Edwards et al, 2003;Finkelhor et al, 2007;Higgins & McCabe, 2000). Researchers have hypothesized that this clustering of different types of CM may be due to bidirectional influences between children's environments and children's own personal characteristics; in addition, CM may shape children's attitudes and behaviors in a way that increases the likelihood of further CM (Finkelhor et al, 2007;Lynch & Cicchetti, 1998).…”