Health implications of maltreated children exposed to domestic violence

Abstract

Domestic violence affects thousands of children in the United States every year. We aimed to obtain an association between caregiver suffrage of domestic violence and adverse health outcomes among maltreated children in the United States. Data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, a total sample of 3,459,625, was analyzed. Descriptive, bivariate, and logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the effect of domestic violence on maltreated children’s health outcomes such as children’s alcohol and drug use, mental developmental delay, emotional disturbances, visual or hearing impairment, learning, and physical disabilities, behavioral problems, and other medical conditions. Exposure to caregiver domestic violence was reported in 13% of cases (n = 276,770). Domestic violence was associated with gender, child’s age, race, ethnicity, and living arrangement (p = 0.001 for all). Adjusted logistic regression showed higher odds of children’s alcohol use (1.62, 95%CI 1.44–1.82), mental developmental delay (1.26 95%CI 1.11–1.42), emotional disturbances (1.13, 95%CI 1.05–1.22), learning disability (1.13, 95%CI 1.04–1.22), and behavioral problems (1.18, 95%CI 1.12–1.24) among those children whose caregivers were exposed to domestic violence. Domestic violence is a fundamental problem in the US that can lead to detrimental health and developmental issues in children.