Disentangling life events, stress and social support: implications for the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.

There is a growing body of literature linking stress and child abuse and neglect, but the relationship is not unambiguously supported by empirical data. Two considerations regarding Garbarino's ecological model of child abuse and neglect may explain this research problem. First, any of the predisposing factors, which are grouped into four levels called individual, familial, social, and cultural, may either positively or negatively affect the potential for child abuse and neglect depending upon the quality of social networks and social supports available to families. Second, these factors operate most importantly, not between the perception of stress and the act of abuse or neglect, but through the interpretation of whether a given life event is stressful or not. This clarification of the ecological model points the way to redefining interventions for the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect. Existing support systems can be strengthened in order to increase a family's ability to cope with untoward events before these become stressful. In addition, advocacy activities which support children and families in general can be major components in the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.