Exploring Psycho-social Determinants to Child Neglect and Abuse among Caregivers with Young Children

Ah Rim Kim; Young Ran Tak

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2016.27.1.81

Journal List > J Korean Acad Community Health Nurs > v.27(1) > 1058447

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Kim and Tak: Exploring Psycho-social Determinants to Child Neglect and Abuse among Caregivers with Young Children

Original Article

J Korean Acad Community Health Nurs 2016;27(1):81-94.

Published online: 12 March 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2016.27.1.81

Exploring Psycho-social Determinants to Child Neglect and Abuse among Caregivers with Young Children

Ah Rim Kim, Young Ran Tak

College of Nursing, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding author: Tak, Young Ran College of Nursing, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 133-791, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2220-0709, Fax: +82-2-2295-2074, E-mail: yrtak@hanyang.ac.kr

Received 29 January 2016 Revised 17 March 2016 Accepted 23 March 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The objective of this study was to investigate the relations among psycho-social factors regarding child neglect and abuse using the data from the 2013 Korea National Survey on Children and Youth.

Methods

Data from a sample of 1,062 primary caregivers with young children were analyzed with the SPSS and AMOS programs to examine the interrelationships among depression, parenting stress, marital satisfaction, parent-child attachment, and child neglect or maltreatment.

Results

Depression, stress, and attachment had a direct influence on child neglect and abuse. Satisfaction with marital relationship, parenting stress, and attachment were found to play mediating roles in accounting for child neglect and abuse, explaining 12% of the variance. The results of multi group path analysis showed that some coefficients were different according to the age group of the children. For caregivers with infants, parenting stress did not predict either attachment or child maltreatment, whereas for caregivers with toddlers, depression did not have a significant effect on attachment.

Conclusion

In order to prevent child maltreatment, efforts should be made to develop community-based psycho-social support interventions focused on marital relationship as well as parent-child dyads and to provide practical child care support.

Keywords: Child abuse, Depression, Caregivers, Parent-child relations, Marital relationship

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Figure 1.

Hypothetical path model diagram.

Figure 2.

A path diagram of the study. Model fit statistics: x² (2)=3.84, p=.15, GFI=.99, CFI=.99, NFI=.99, TLI=.98, RMSEA=.02 with 90% CI[.00,.07]. Solid lines represent statistically significant standardized path coefficients (*p<.01, **p<.001); Error variances appear in small circles.

Figure 3.

Path models according to age group of children. Solid lines represent statistically significant standardized path coefficients (*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001); dashed lines represent non-significant standardized path coefficients.

Table 1.

Correlation Coefficient, Mean and Standard Deviation of Study Variables (N=1,062)

Variables	Marital satisfaction	Parent-child attachment	Parenting stress	Child neglect & abuse	M±SD	Kurtosis	Skewness
Variables	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	M±SD	Kurtosis	Skewness
Depression	−.27	−.17	.35	.28	16.59±4.83	2.27	1.30
Depression	(＜.001)	(＜.001)	(＜.001)	(＜.001)
Marital satisfaction		.16	−.13	−.13	3.10±0.47	3.15	−0.08
Marital satisfaction		(＜.001)	(＜.001)	(＜.001)
Parent-child attachment			−.14	−.21	14.39±1.79	−0.12	−0.81
Parent-child attachment			(＜.001)	(＜.001)
Parenting stress				.19	12.60±4.43	−0.81	−0.12
Parenting stress				(＜.001)
Child neglect & abuse					13.78±2.09	3.48	13.62
Child neglect & abuse						(2.99^†)	(9.12^†)

^† Value after log transformation.

Table 2.

Standardized Estimates of the Path Model (N=1,062)

Endogenous variable	Exogenous variable	Direct effect	Indirect effect	Total effect	SMC
Endogenous variable	Exogenous variable	β (p)	β (p)	β (p)	%
Marital satisfaction	Depression	−.27 (.002)	−	−.27 (.002)	7.4
Parenting stress	Depression	.35 (.015)	−	.35 (.015)	12.4
Attachment	Depression	−.10 (.012)	−.06 (.012)	−.16 (.007)	4.8
	Marital satisfaction	.12 (.014)	−	.12 (.014)
	Parenting stress	−.09 (.009)	−	−.09 (.009)
Child neglect & abuse	Depression	.23 (.006)	.06 (.006)	.29 (.005)	12.0
	Marital satisfaction	−	−.02 (.013)	−.02 (.013)
	Parenting stress	.10 (.006)	.02 (.007)	.12 (.007)
	Attachment	−.17 (.020)	−	−.17 (.020)

SMC=squared multiple correlations.

Table 3.

Path Estimates of the Research Variables according to Age Group of Children

Endogenous variable	Exogenous variable	Infants (n=489)				Toddlers (n=573)
Endogenous variable	Exogenous variable	B	β	SE	CR	B	β	SE	CR
Marital satisfaction	Depression	−.03	−.30	.00	−6.91***	−.02	−.25	.00	−6.13***
Parenting stress	Depression	.33	.36	.03	8.43***	.32	.35	.03	8.92***
Attachment	Depression	−.05	−.12	.02	−2.42*	−.03	−.08	.02	−1.87
	Marital satisfaction	.46	.12	.17	2.61**	.45	.12	.16	2.79**
	Parenting stress	−.02	−.04	.02	−0.77	−.05	−.14	.01	−3.13**
Child neglect & abuse	Depression	.00	.19	.00	4.12***	.01	.24	.00	5.91***
	Parenting stress	.00	.03	.00	0.62	.01	.15	.00	3.68***
	Attachment	−.01	−.15	.00	−3.32***	−.01	−.17	.00	−4.33***
Model fit: x²=5.24, df=4, p=.264, GFI=.99, CFI=.99, NFI=.99, TLI=.98, RMSEA=.01

df=degree of freedom; GFI=goodness of fit index; CFI=comparative fit index; NFI=normed fit index; TLI=tucker-lewis Index; RMSEA=root mean square error of approximation; *p＜.05, **p＜.01, ***p＜.001.

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