Risk factors in child abuse and neglect

Abstract

Our knowledge of those factors which place children at risk for physical or sexual abuse is both limited and imprecise. The reasons for these limitations derive from both practical methodological constraints and a lack of definitional consensus among researchers in this field. This paper discusses the difficulties, both methodological and practical, involved in the development of a scientifically- based knowledge of risk factors in child abuse. Those factors known or commonly believed to be related to risk for child abuse and neglect are then described, with emphasis on those which appear to be popularly and clinically over- valued as predictors of abuse: demographic variables, psychopathology, and history of abuse. Likely foci for future research in this area are then described, with special attention to the problems inherent in each.