These results support the need for clinicians to increase efforts to detect and treat depression in physically abused and neglected children.

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The literature has been contradictory regarding whether parents who were abused as children have a greater tendency to abuse their own children. A prospective 30-year follow-up study interviewed individuals with documented histories of childhood abuse and neglect and matched comparisons and a subset of their children. The study assessed maltreatment based on child protective service (CPS) agency records and reports by parents, nonparents, and offspring. The extent of the intergenerational transmission of abuse and neglect depended in large part on the source of the information used. Individuals with histories of childhood abuse and neglect have higher rates of being reported to CPS for child maltreatment but do not self-report more physical and sexual abuse than matched comparisons. Offspring of parents with histories of childhood abuse and neglect are more likely to report sexual abuse and neglect and that CPS was concerned about them at some point in their lives. The strongest evidence for the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment indicates that offspring are at risk for childhood neglect and sexual abuse, but detection or surveillance bias may account for the greater likelihood of CPS reports.

Scholars have acknowledged the need to anchor scientific knowledge about social and psychological processes in the norms, values, and experiences of the partticular population under study. This article describes how focus groups can be incorporated into the planning stages of a research pogram to facilitate these goals. After a brief overview of teh central components of focus group research, and example from a program of research involving dual‐earner African American families is used to as an illustration. The article describes how (a) the identification of cultural knowledge and (b)access to the language participants use to think and talk about a topic can help researchers formulate a conceptual framework, identify important constructs, and develop appropriate instruments for assessing constructs. Some strengths and limitations of focus group research are discussed.