Children's behavior problems, caregivers' trauma history, and membership in latent physical abuse trajectory classes: An approach of latent class growth analysis to dating violence victimization.

BACKGROUND

Child abuse is a serious social problem in the USA as many children suffer from child abuse and its negative consequences are severe. To prevent future victimization, it is essential to understand unique patterns of child abuse trajectories over time and the factors associated with their victimization.

OBJECTIVE

The primary goal of this study was to identify individual differences in developmental trajectories of alleged physical abuse between the ages of 2 and 12.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

The sample included all children drawn from Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), which is a consortium of five study sites (South, East, Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest).

METHODS

Using the high-risk sample with Child Protective Service record reviews prior to age 4, significant variability in trajectory class membership was observed in the unconditional Latent Class Growth Analysis.

RESULTS

Three trajectory classes were obtained from the data: Early Onset, Late Peak and Non-Victims. The findings showed that children who had an attention problem at age 4 were more likely to become members of both the Early Onset and Late Peak groups, relative to Non-victims. Also, membership in the Late Peak group was predicted by caregivers' childhood physical abuse, supporting for the cycle of physical abuse across generations. Finally, children in the Late Peak group were at the highest risk of being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused in a dating relationship at age 14.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that children's internal and external behavior problems and caregivers' childhood physical abuse are predictive of child abuse trajectory class membership. Parental education programs that increase their knowledge about children with special needs and intervention programs targeting caregivers with a history of physical abuse would be beneficial to prevent child abuse (re)victimization.