Domestic Violence Events: updated as of 05/04/2012
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Parental substance abuse as a predictor of other forms of adverse childhood experiences in adult domestic violence survivors. Griffing, S., Sage, R.E., Jospitre, T.& Chu, M.

Previous research program has demonstrated a significant relationship between a history of parental substance abuse (PSA) and a history of childhood maltreatment in adult samples of domestic violence survivors (Griffing et al., 2006; Jospitre et al., 2005; Jospitre et al., 2006). This study expands upon our previous work to examine the degree to which PSA increases the risk of other adverse childhood experiences. Participants were an ethnically diverse sample of 209 adult residents of a New York City domestic violence shelter managed by the Urban Resource Institute. Participants were asked about their history of five forms of childhood victimization (physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and physical and emotional neglect), as well as four other types of adverse childhood experiences (parental incarceration, parental psychiatric illness, witnessing maternal domestic violence, and foster care placement). Parental substance abuse was the most frequently reported adverse experience, and was acknowledged by 48.3% of the sample (n=101). As hypothesized, a PSA history significantly increased the risk of each of the other nine types of adverse experiences, and the PSA group reported significantly more types of adverse experiences than the non-PSA group (4.1 vs. 1.5). These findings underscore the importance of examining the impact of multiple types of adverse experiences in studies of PSA, to avoid misattributing the effects of these other events solely to PSA. Clinical intervention with the children of parental substance abusers should include a thorough assessment of other risk factors, and broad based intervention. Finally, these findings highlight the need for close collaboration between substance abuse and domestic violence programs, and the importance of cross-training for staff within these agencies.