Family perceptions of abused children and their siblings

This study compared the family perceptions of twenty abused children and their nonabused siblings with each other and with a matched group of twenty nonabused control children and their siblings. In semi-structured interviews conducted by the investigator, each child was asked to describe his or her mother, father and sibling. Verbatim transcripts were then subjected to content analysis. The results of the study indicated a statistically significant difference between the abused children and the control children. The abused children tended to perceive family members less positively and more negatively than did the control children. No such differences were found between abused children and their siblings. Statistically significant differences were also found between the siblings of the abused children and the siblings of the control children. Siblings from abusing families tended to perceive family members less positively than did siblings from control families.