The Relationship Between Mothers' Mental Health and Violence Against Their Children

Abstract

Background: The negative life experiences and mental state of the mothers cause them to be inadequate to meet the needs of their children and to show negligent-abusive behavior towards their children. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mothers' mental health status and neglect/emotional-physical violence behavior towards their children. Methods: This was a cross-sectional quantitative study. The population of the study consists of women who had children aged 0-11 years who applied to a public hospital in Istanbul in the first quarter of 2016. In the study, Self-Reporting Questionnaire-SRQ was used to measure the mental health of mothers, and violence questionnaire was used to measure the violent behaviors of mothers towards their children. SPSS 20.0 program was used for statistical analysis. Results: It was found that almost half of the mothers had high psychological / psychiatric problems (above the threshold). It was found that the rates of high level of emotional violence, low and high level of physical violence against the children of mothers with a Self-Reporting Questionnaire-SRQ above the threshold were higher. In addition, a statistically significant difference was found between traumatic life experiences and mothers' neglect behavior towards the child and this difference was not found in the abuse types. Conclusions: In families with traumatic events, negligent behaviors of mothers towards their children are observed more frequently. In families with high traumatic life experiences, negligent behaviors of mothers towards their children are seen at a higher rate than families with low traumatic life experiences.