Child victims' attributions about being physically abused: an examination of factors associated with symptom severity.
The goal of the present study was to examine a conceptual attributional model for the development of psychopathology after child physical abuse. Physically abused or maltreated children referred for treatment completed a series of measures to assess parent-to-child violence, abuse-specific attributions and general attributional style, other potential predictors, and children's psychopathology. Results revealed that the severity of current parent-to-child violence was associated with children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Attributions predicted the level of children's psychopathology beyond the variance accounted for by the severity of parent-to-child violence. The severity of parent-to-child violence, attributions about the abuse, general attributional style, and level of family functioning accounted for 28%-63% of the variance in children's abuse-specific, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms. Implications of the findings and research recommendations are discussed.
Brown
E J
EJ
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York 10029, USA. elissa_brown@mssm.edu
Kolko
D J
DJ
D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D014754:Violence