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Discrepancies between children's and caregivers' child maltreatment reporting and their associations with child
Saijun Zhang1, Yanfeng Xu2, Jun Sung Hong3
1University of Mississippi, Department of Social Work, Garland 315, University, MS 38677, United States of America.
Insights
Children and caregivers often disagree on the frequency of child maltreatment, impacting child wellbeing. These discrepancies in reporting psychological and physical maltreatment are linked to negative outcomes like anxiety and delinquency.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Forensic Psychology
Background:
- Child maltreatment reporting is crucial for child welfare services.
- Discrepancies in reporting among different informants pose challenges for effective intervention.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate discrepancies between child and caregiver reports of psychological and physical maltreatment.
- To examine the association of these discrepancies with child outcomes such as anxiety, depression, aggression, and delinquency.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n=3150).
- Employed multivariate models to analyze child-caregiver reporting discrepancies and their correlation with child behavioral and emotional outcomes.
Main Results:
- A significant proportion of children reported higher or lower frequencies of psychological and physical maltreatment compared to caregivers.
- Children's reports of maltreatment were more strongly associated with anxiety, depression, and delinquency.
- Caregivers' reports were more closely linked to aggression.
- Discrepancies where children reported more maltreatment were linked to increased negative outcomes.
Conclusions:
- Children and caregivers may have differing perceptions of maltreatment, contributing to reporting barriers.
- These perceptual differences and reporting discrepancies are significantly related to children's overall wellbeing.
Background:
Child maltreatment reporting is critical for case investigation and service disposition. However, reporting discrepancies across informants is a challenge for child welfare services.
Methods:
Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 3150), the current study examined child-caregiver discrepancies in reporting the frequencies of psychological and physical maltreatment. Multivariate models were used to examine how caregivers' reports, children's reports, and discrepancies between the two were associated with child anxiety, depression, aggression, and delinquency.
Results:
A quarter of the children reported psychological maltreatment at a higher (25.7 %) or lower (23.8 %) frequency than their caregivers' report, respectively; 8.4 % and 8.7 % of the children did so in physical maltreatment reports, respectively. Multivariate models showed that children's maltreatment reports were more closely associated with children's anxiety, depression, and delinquency than caregivers' reports, while caregivers' reports were more closely associated with children's aggression. After accounting for caregivers' reporting and other covariates, children who reported more frequent psychological maltreatment than their caregivers' report had a higher level of anxiety, depression, and delinquency (b = 0.17 to 0.25, p < 0.001), and the opposite was true (b = -0.36 to -0.13, p < 0.001). Similarly, children who reported more frequent physical maltreatment than their caregivers' report had a higher level of all negative outcomes (b = 0.04 to 0.44; p = 0.04 to <0.00), and the opposite was true for aggression (b = -0.08, p = 0.004).
Conclusions:
The findings suggest that in addition to other reporting barriers, children and caregivers may perceive maltreatment differently, and such discrepancies are related to children's wellbeing.
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