Parental substance abuse and the nature of child maltreatment

The authors reviewed 190 randomly selected records from the case load of a large juvenile court. These records involved cases in which the state took legal custody of the children following a finding of significant child maltreatment, based on a "clear and convincing" standard of evidence. Sixty-seven percent (127/190) of these cases involved parents who were classified as substance abusers. The results of this study revealed specific associations between (a) alcohol abuse and physical maltreatment and (b) cocaine abuse and sexual maltreatment. Logistic analyses, testing for the effects of polysubstance abuse, revealed that additional forms of substance abuse failed to add significantly to the effects of alcohol in predicting physical maltreatment or cocaine in predicting sexual maltreatment.