Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, United States of America.
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, United States of America.
Child Abuse Negl. 2023 Nov;145:106432. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106432. Epub 2023 Sep 7.
Prior research on child maltreatment has focused on distinct features of maltreatment (type, severity, chronicity) important for youth outcomes, yet perpetrators of child maltreatment reported by youth have gone largely unstudied. The present study examines connections between perpetrators, the total number and type of perpetrators reported, and the frequency at which each type of perpetrator was reported across 24 relationship types to provide a foundation for future research seeking to provide comprehensive measurement of perpetrator profiles.
Data from 503 youth in foster care (8-21 years old) were collected through the Studying Pathways to Adjustment and Resilience in Kids (SPARK) Project. Youth reported on their history of physical, sexual, and psychological maltreatment. Social Network Analysis (SNA) was used to visualize links between perpetrators within maltreatment type and paired samples t-tests were used to compare differences between network edge weights.
Full sample SNA results were highly interconnected and variable across maltreatment types. Biological parents and peers were the most common perpetrators of physical and psychological abuse with peers and non-family adults being most common for sexual abuse. Family and community member groupings were most distinct in the physical and psychological abuse networks whereas in the sexual abuse network, ties between perpetrators were more equidistant.
Differences exist in perpetrator profiles across maltreatment types, adding a layer of complexity to how maltreatment experiences are captured, and variability in profiles might provide insight to differing youth outcomes. Understanding individual youth perpetrator profiles could be used to inform foster care placements and reduce the risk of revictimization.
先前关于儿童虐待的研究集中在虐待的不同特征（类型、严重程度、持续性）上，这些特征对青年的结果很重要，但青少年报告的虐待者却在很大程度上未被研究过。本研究通过对 24 种关系类型的研究，考察了施虐者、报告的施虐者总数和类型以及每种类型施虐者的报告频率之间的联系，为未来旨在提供施虐者概况全面衡量的研究奠定了基础。
通过 Studying Pathways to Adjustment and Resilience in Kids (SPARK) 项目收集了 503 名寄养儿童（8-21 岁）的数据。青少年报告了他们遭受身体、性和心理虐待的历史。社会网络分析（SNA）用于可视化虐待类型内施虐者之间的联系，配对样本 t 检验用于比较网络边缘权重之间的差异。
全样本 SNA 结果高度互联，且在虐待类型之间变化很大。亲生父母和同龄人是身体和心理虐待最常见的施虐者，而同龄人以及非家庭成员成年人则是性虐待最常见的施虐者。在身体和心理虐待网络中，家庭和社区成员群体最为独特，而在性虐待网络中，施虐者之间的联系更为平等。
在不同的虐待类型中，施虐者的特征存在差异，这增加了如何捕捉虐待经历的复杂性，并且特征的可变性可能为不同的青年结果提供了一些线索。了解个别青少年施虐者的特征可以用于告知寄养安置，并降低再次受害的风险。
