ABSTRACT

About 30% of children referred to child protective services each year in the US experience recurring maltreatment. Maltreatment has been linked to a myriad of negative developmental outcomes for children, such as externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Yet, few studies have examined services to prevent recurrences of maltreatment among reunified children. Utilizing data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being II (NSCAW II), the objective of this study was to investigate types of services that decreased recurrences of child maltreatment post-reunification. The sample included n = 1,168 children who were in out-of-home care at Wave One (2008) and had reunified at Wave Two (2009–2010). These children were followed for 18 months (2011–2012) to compare to those who experienced a substantiated recurrence of child maltreatment after reunification to those who did not. Survival analysis was conducted with time to recurrence as the outcome variable. Results suggest that about one in five children experienced recurrences of maltreatment during the first 18 months of reunification. Rates of parental service utilization were high (63%). Adjusting for covariates, only out-of-home prevention services (HR = 0.42, 95% CI = 0.24–0.75, p <.01) was negatively associated with recurrences of maltreatment. Implications for research, practice, as well as limitations, are discussed.

摘要

在美国，每年约有30％的儿童转介儿童保护服务，屡屡受到虐待。虐待已与儿童的无数负面发展结果有关，例如外在化和内在化行为。但是，很少有研究检查了防止再次发生的虐待儿童重返社会的服务。利用第二次全国儿童和青少年福祉调查（NSCAW II）的数据，本研究的目的是调查减少统一后儿童虐待复发率的服务类型。样本包括n = 在第一波（2008年）中有1,168名儿童在家庭外照看，并在第二波（2009-2010年）中重新团聚。对这些儿童进行了为期18个月（2011-2012年）的随访，以比较那些在团聚后再次确诊的儿童虐待事件再次发生的儿童与那些未再次发生儿童虐待的儿童。以复发时间作为结果变量进行生存分析。结果表明，在回归的头18个月中，约有五分之一的孩子再次遭受虐待。父母服务利用率很高（63％）。调整协变量后，只有出门在外的预防服务（HR =  0.42，95％CI = 0.24–0.75，p < .01）与虐待的复发呈负相关。讨论了对研究，实践和局限性的暗示。