Reliability and Diagnostic Efficacy of Parents’ Reports Regarding Children’s Exposure to Marital Aggression

Abstract

Mothers, fathers, and 8- to 11-year-old children from 181 two-parent families independently reported on the occurrence of husband-to-wife physical aggression and wife-to-husband physical aggression; parents additionally indicated whether the child had been witness to the aggression. First this study examined interspousal agreement regarding whether parents have been physically aggressive toward one another and whether the child has witnessed interparental physical aggression. There was moderate agreement between parents as to the occurrence of physical aggression and only fair agreement as to whether the child saw or heard the aggression. Second, this study explored the diagnosticity of a joint parent report as an indicator of child exposure to marital aggression. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are presented separately for husbands’ and wives’ aggression, indicating the explicit trade-off between true positives (sensitivity) and false positives (one minus specificity) in using the joint parent report as a diagnostic indicator. Standard ROC analysis suggests that the joint parent report is equally diagnostic in predicting children’s reports of exposure to husbands’ and wives’ aggression. Finally, decisions regarding how to use parent reports as an indicator of children’s exposure to marital aggression are discussed as depending on the base rate of child reports of exposure and the objective sought in classifying children and/or families.

Children's Witnessing of Adult Domestic Violence

“…Almost all of the studies reported above relied on mothers' reports of their children's problems. As pointed out earlier, O'Brien, et al(1994) have shown that many parents report their children are unaware of violence between the adults when the children, in fact, report awareness of it. Studies that rely on the reports of only parents to define witnessing may incorrectly classify significant numbers of children as non-witnesses.…”

“…Reports by children and by adults of their childhood experiences suggest that parents may severely underestimate the degree to which their children are exposed to the violence. For example, O'Brien, John, Margolin and Erel (1994) found that one in four of the children in a community-based sample reported seeing violence used by one parent against another. Over a third (36%) of these children reporting seeing violence used by fathers against mothers when at least one parent reported no violence occurred or that their children had not seen such events.…”

Animal abuse among preadolescents directly and indirectly victimized at school and at home

“…The best way to learn about them is to ask directly those potentially involved. Selfreports remain among the most reliable methods used also to disclose youngsters' victimization, including bullying in school (O'Brien et al, 1994;Baldry, 1998) but they should be validated, where possible, from other sources (parents, social welfare records, peers or teacher).…”

Partner Violence and Risk Assessment in Child Custody Evaluations

“…Studies have also suggested significant discrepancies on parent estimates of exposure of children to partner violence and children reports (Dobash & Dobash, 1984;Hughes, Parkinson, & Vargo, 1989;O'Brien, John, Margolin, & Erel, 1994). Parents tend to underestimate the frequency of child exposure.…”