Southern Illinois University Carbondale, United States.
Saint Joseph's University, United States.
Child Abuse Negl. 2021 Dec;122:105355. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105355. Epub 2021 Oct 13.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
儿童虐待是美国的一个严重社会问题，许多儿童遭受儿童虐待，其负面影响严重。为了防止未来的受害，了解儿童虐待轨迹随时间的独特模式以及与受害相关的因素至关重要。
本研究的主要目的是确定 2 至 12 岁之间涉嫌身体虐待的发展轨迹的个体差异。
该样本包括来自儿童虐待和忽视纵向研究（LONGSCAN）的所有儿童，该研究是五个研究地点（南部、东部、中西部、西北部和西南部）的联盟。
使用儿童保护服务记录审查前 4 岁的高风险样本，在无条件潜在类别增长分析中观察到轨迹类别成员的显著可变性。
从数据中获得了三个轨迹类别：早期发病、晚期高峰和非受害者。研究结果表明，4 岁时注意力问题的儿童与非受害者相比，更有可能成为早期发病和晚期高峰组的成员。此外，照顾者的童年期身体虐待预测了晚期高峰组的成员资格，支持了代际身体虐待的循环。最后，在 14 岁时，处于晚期高峰组的儿童在恋爱关系中遭受身体、心理和性虐待的风险最高。
这些结果表明，儿童的内部和外部行为问题以及照顾者的童年期身体虐待是预测儿童虐待轨迹类别成员资格的因素。增加父母对有特殊需要的儿童的知识的父母教育计划和针对有身体虐待史的照顾者的干预计划将有助于预防儿童（再次）受害。
