title: The role of parenting stress in young children's mental health functioning after exposure to family violence.
abstract: This study evaluates the associations of young children's exposure to family violence events, parenting stress, and children's mental health functioning. Caregivers provided data for 188 children ages 3 to 5 years attending Head Start programming. Caregivers reported 75% of children had experienced at least 1 type of trauma event, and 27% of children had experienced a family violence event. Child mental health functioning was significantly associated with family violence exposure after controlling for children's age, gender, household income, and other trauma exposure (β = .14, p = .033). Stress in the parenting role partially mediated the relationship between family violence exposure and young children's mental health functioning (β = .12, p = .015, 95% confidence interval [0.02, 0.21]). Interventions for young children exposed to family violence should address the needs of the child, as well as the caregiver while also building healthy parent-child relationships to facilitate positive outcomes in children faced with trauma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, The Consultation Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
authors.forename: Yvonne Humenay
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Christina A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Monette
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferguson
authors.forename: Cindy A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Crusto
mesh_terms: D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
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