Relationships Between Experiences of Parental Violence During Childhood and Women's Psychiatric Symptomatology

Abstract

Data were collected from 472 women between the ages of 18 and 45 drawn from five sources: outpatient alcoholism treatment, DWI education programs, a shelter for battered women, outpatient mental health treatment, and randomly from the community. To control for alcohol problems and help-seeking behavior, respondents were classified into three groups: women with alcohol problems and in treatment, women without alcohol problems and in treatment, and women in the random sample. Controlling for respondents' (a) help-seeking behavior, alcohol problems, race, childhood socioeconomic status, and parental alcohol problems, (b) experiences of father-to-daughter verbal aggression and violence, and (c) level of severity of father-to-daughter abuse were found to predict adulthood psychiatric symptomatology. However, experiences of mother-to-daughter verbal aggression and violence, as well as level of severity of mother-to-daughter abuse were found unrelated to adulthood psychiatric symptomatology in the multivariate analyses. Explanations for the greater effect of father verbal abuse and violence are discussed.