Parent-Child Relationship and Family Variables as Predictors of Child Abuse Potential: Implications for Assessment and Early Intervention

Introduction Child physical abuse continues to be a prevalent concern in the United States. The U.S. Bureau of the Census (1994) concluded that more than 200,000 children are physically abused each year, with over a thousand of these children dying as a consequence of the abuse. According to reports from the states to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, physical abuse accounted for 24% of all maltreatment reports (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). Extensive research has demonstrated the deleterious short-term and long-term effects of physical abuse on children (e., and a more negative attribution style (Brown & Kolko, 1999) in children who have been physically abused compared to non-abused children. An improved understanding of factors associated with high child abuse potential is needed to increase knowledge about the etiology of physical child abuse and is crucial for the design and implementation of effective prevention and intervention programs. Overwhelmingly, research has concluded that no single factor or characteristic leads a parent to maltreat their child, but rather a complex interaction of determinants contribute to the potential to abuse The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of parent-child relationship and family variables to physically abusive parenting. The current study investigated different aspects of the parent-child relationship (e.g., parents' level of involvement with their child, satisfaction with parenting, degree of anger evoked in parent-child interactions, degree to which the child meets parental expectations) and their relationship to the parent's potential to abuse. have demonstrated that the parent's immediate environment is influential on their parenting strategies. Therefore, this study assessed how family contextual variables (i.e., age of caregiver, number of children in the home, and level of parent education) and parent-child relationship variables contribute to the parent's potential to abuse. Additionally, a secondary aim was to determine if the relative influences of these variables would change depending upon the use of child abuse potential as a continuous or a dichotomous variable.