The objective of this study is to enhance understanding of processes by which intergenerational risk factors for child maltreatment are passed through families. The study explores associations between maternal history of childhood maltreatment, and children’s mental health outcomes.
The study addresses significant gaps in the literature on intergenerational aspects of childhood maltreatment. Much research has been devoted to establishing the relationship between maternal childhood maltreatment and the likelihood her children will also become victims; a well known connection. What is not understood is how this occurs; in terms of identifying both intergenerational risk factors and mediating processes to explain how these risks move through generations. This study first explores the connection between maternal childhood maltreatment and a known risk factor for child maltreatment in the next generation; poor mental health outcomes. The study draws upon theories of attachment, psychopathology, developmental psychopathology, and social learning to create and evaluate a hypothesized mediational model to explain this relationship.
133 mother-child dyads formed the sample. The mothers and children are from a high-risk substance abusing sample, and a primarily low socioeconomic status and African American community. The study used secondary data analysis, and a non-experimental and cross-sectional design. Data was derived from a National Institute on Drug Abuse project examining long-term effects of prenatal substance abuse on children.
The results indicate that maternal childhood maltreatment was correlated with children’s negative mental health outcomes, a risk factor that increases the likelihood that these children will also experience child maltreatment. This relationship was strongest with those measures of children’s mental health reflecting social behavior and relational problems. Maternal experience of intimate partner violence also emerged as an important variable, as it not only exacerbated maternal mental health problems, it increased children’s mental health problems. None of the hypothesized mediating relationships were supported. It was posited that maternal mental health, maternal ability to manage the home environment, and intimate partner violence mediated the relationship between maternal childhood maltreatment and children’s mental health outcomes, but these relationships were not found. The study’s implications for future research, theory development, policymaking, and social work practice and education are discussed.