Type:	Journal Article
Title:	How much does “how much” matter? Assessing the relationship between children’s lifetime exposure to violence and trauma symptoms, behavior problems, and parenting stress
Other Titles:	Journal of interpersonal violence
Authors:	Schultz, Dana Hickman, Laura J Jaycox, Lisa H Setodji, Claude M Kofner, Aaron Barnes-Proby, Dionne Harris, Racine
Keywords:	Measurement;Impact on children and young people
Year:	2013
Publisher:	Sage Publications
Citation:	28 (6), April 2013
Notes:	The study explores whether and how lifetime violence exposure is related to a set of negative symptoms: child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, child trauma symptoms, and parenting stress. Using a large sample of violence-exposed children recruited to participate in intervention research, the study employs different methods of measuring that exposure. These include total frequency of all lifetime exposure, total frequency of lifetime exposure by broad category (i.e., assault, maltreatment, sexual abuse, and witnessing violence), and polyvictimization defined as exposure to multiple violence categories. The results indicate that only polyvictimization, constructed as a dichotomous variable indicating two or more categories of lifetime exposure, emerged as a consistent predictor of negative symptoms. The total lifetime frequency of all violence exposure was not associated with negative symptoms, after controlling for the influence of polyvictimization. Likewise, in the presence of a dichotomous polyvictimization indicator the total lifetime frequency of exposure to a particular violence category was unrelated to symptoms overall, with the exception of trauma symptoms and experiences of sexual abuse. Taken together, these findings suggest that total lifetime exposure is not particularly important to negative symptoms, nor is any particular category of exposure after controlling for polyvictimization, with the single exception of sexual abuse and trauma symptoms. Instead, it is the mix of exposure experiences that predict negative impacts on children in this sample. Further research is needed to continue to explore and test these issues. [?2013 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. For further information, visit SAGE Publications link.]
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/15114
ISSN:	0886-2605
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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