Intimate partner violence: What are the impacts on children?

Abstract

Evidence suggests that children who live with intimate partner violence between their parents or caregivers are at risk for psychological and behavioural problems. This paper presents an overview of the substantial body of literature now existing in this field. It reports on the prevalence of intimate partner abuse in developed countries and the potentially large population of children who experience conflict of this nature. Rates of co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and directly targeted physical child abuse are reviewed, as well as possible reasons for this overlap. Impacts of living with intimate partner violence during childhood are summarised. Heightened prevalence of posttraumatic symptomatology, mood difficulties, and behavioural problems have been reported in this population of children, and there are indications that difficulties may persist. Possible mediators and mechanisms of these associations are reviewed. The difficulty of separating the effects of directly targeted child assault from those of living with violence is discussed, as is the apparent similarity in outcomes associated with each type of violence. The paper is concluded with comments on implications and recommendations for future research.

Intimate partner violence and child abuse: a child‐centred perspective

“…Since then, the literature focusing on children living with intimate partner violence has grown exponentially (see Bedi and Goddard, 2007). A large amount of research has also examined relationships between intimate partner violence and child abuse (see Appel and Holden, 1998).…”

Concerted Practice-Based Actions in Intimate Partner and Family Violence: When the Children’s Well-Being Is the Central Concern

“…Compared to children from the general population, such children present more risk of developing physical health and emotional problems [11,14,26]. With regards to mental health, these children are more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress [10,15,27,28]. They may also present different types of difficulties, including adaptation, social functioning, cognitive and academic, and interiorized and exteriorized behavioural problems [5,6,10,11,13,15,18,27].…”

“…With regards to mental health, these children are more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress [10,15,27,28]. They may also present different types of difficulties, including adaptation, social functioning, cognitive and academic, and interiorized and exteriorized behavioural problems [5,6,10,11,13,15,18,27]. Furthermore, these children might also reproduce the violence in their own intimate relationships, whether it be in adolescence or adulthood [10,[13][14][15]18].…”

Versão Portuguesa da Escala de Perceção da Criança sobre os Conflitos Interparentais – Versão para crianças dos 7 aos 9 anos (EPCCI-C)

“…Na avaliação do fenómeno da exposição da criança aos conflitos interparentais há que ter em conta diversos fatores considerados mediadores do impacto (Overbeek, Schipper, Willemen, Lamers-Winkelman, & Schuengel, 2015;Sani, 2006a), que permitem perceber a variabilidade experiencial destas crianças, a qual se traduz em consequências diversas a curto médio e longo prazos (Almeida & Sani, 2014;Bedi & Goddard, 2007;Grasso et al, 2015;Sani, 2007). Entre estes fatores estão variáveis que apelam às construções cognitivas que cada criança elabora acerca dos conflitos violentos entre os pais (Grych & Fincham, 1990;Grych, Seid & Fincham, 1992;Jouriles, McDonald, Mueller, & Grych, 2013;Mendes & Sani, 2014, 2015 e que influenciam o seu ajustamento global.…”