A comparison of abusive and nonabusive mothers of abused children

A majority of the approximately 240,000 children in this country who were physically maltreated in 1997 live with their mothers, regardless of whether their mothers committed the abuse. This study compared service use and functioning at intake for families of physically abused children as a function of the mother's offender status. Analyses found few differences in the initial functioning and subsequent services received by abusive and nonabusive mothers and their children. Abusive mothers did receive fewer services overall and were significantly less likely to receive individual parent services as compared to nonabusive mothers. This was true, despite abusive mothers receiving less positive parent ratings by their children at intake as compared to nonabusive mothers. Results from this study highlight the similarities among abusive families, whether or not the mother perpetrated the abuse. Future research should include abusive families in the control group to have the greatest impact on developing effective identification and prevention programs. These results also emphasize the importance of collecting data from multiple informants. The only significant difference in maternal functioning was found on a child-completed rating. Mothers involved in child protective services may be less likely to reveal negative information about their own functioning.