Parental intimate partner homicide and its consequences for children: protocol for a population-based study

Abstract

BackgroundThe loss of a parent due to intimate partner homicide has a major impact on children. Professionals involved have to make far-reaching decisions regarding placement, guardianship, mental health care and contact with the perpetrating parent, without an evidence base to guide these decisions. We introduce a study protocol to a) systematically describe the demographics, circumstances, mental health and wellbeing of children bereaved by intimate partner homicide and b) build a predictive model of factors associated with children’s mental health and wellbeing after intimate partner homicide.Methods/DesignThis study focuses on children bereaved by parental intimate partner homicide in the Netherlands over a period of 20 years (1993 – 2012). It involves an incidence study to identify all Dutch intimate partner homicide cases between 1993 and 2012 by which children have been bereaved; systematic case reviews to describe the demographics, circumstances and care trajectories of these children; and a mixed-methods study to assess mental health, wellbeing, and experiences regarding decisions made and care provided.DiscussionClinical experience and initial research suggest that the children involved often need long-term intensive mental health and case management. The costs of these services are extensive and the stakes are high. This study lays the foundation for an international dataset and evidence-informed decision making.

Children bereaved by fatal intimate partner violence: A population-based study into demographics, family characteristics and homicide exposure

“…The protocol for the larger project has been published [ 21 ] and has been approved by the University Medical Center Utrecht Ethics Committee (13/609, 24-12-2013). For the current article, we aimed to systematically study all children who had been bereaved by parental intimate partner homicide in the Netherlands over a period of 10 years (2003–2012).…”

“…Almost all information was in narrative form and had to be categorized by the research team [ 21 ]. For this purpose, we developed a coding scheme within IBM SPSS Statistics version 22.0, which was tested with two cases, discussed within the team and with the study’s advisory board, adjusted, tested with two further cases, and subsequently deployed for data extraction.…”

“…In the current study, we aimed to identify all children exposed to parental intimate partner homicide in the Netherlands in the decade 2003–2012 (while they were 0–18 years old), and describe their characteristics and circumstances prior to, and during the homicide. The study is part of a larger Dutch project on the consequences of fatal domestic violence, covering the period 1993–2012 [ 21 ]. Because preliminary enquiries indicated that databases covering the first decade were only partially digitalized and not available for comprehensive searches, we focused on the second decade (2003–2012).…”

Reasons assigned to suicide attempts: adolescents’ perceptions

“…Considering that grief in both the situations reported by the participants lead to the break of an affective relationship, which, coupled with the vulnerability inherent to the adolescence, probably imposed difficulties on adolescents during the process of acquiring autonomy and independence, and influenced the maintenance and establishment of new affective bonds. One study conducted in the Netherlands suggests that every child and adolescent who lose loved family members, especially in the case of homicides, as one of the adolescents reported, often require specialized mental health services and social services to prevent them from becoming vulnerable to grief and find other ways to cope with loss (17) .…”

Diferencias entre feminicidios precedidos y no precedidos por la separación de la pareja

“…Hoy se sabe que los perjuicios de padecer esta clase de violencia extrema no afectan solo a las mujeres, sino también a los hijos que sufren el ataque mortal (Alisic, Groot, Snetselaar, Stroeken & van de Putte, 2015) o que han de afrontar las consecuencias potencialmente traumáticas de una doble pérdida. Por un lado, la de la madre.…”