Coping Resources of Maltreated Children in the Family: A Salutogenic Approach

• NCJ Number: 202547
• Journal: Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 25 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 1463-1480
• Author(s): Shifra Sagy; Naomi Dotan
• Date Published: November 2001
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Based on a salutogenic approach (focus on factors that contribute to health and well-being), this study sought to identify factors and resources that may help maltreated children cope with their abuse and maintain their psychological health.

Abstract

"Maltreatment" is broadly defined in this study, encompassing physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, but excluding sexual abuse, since its impact may be markedly different from that of the other maltreatment types. The moderating variables used in the study pertained to three settings in the ecology of the child: family, school, and community. The underlying assumption in this approach is that the buffering effect in coping with maltreatment is primarily facilitated by the way children perceive their surroundings (family, school, and community) much more than by the "objective" character of the settings. A total of 226 students in 8th grade in central Israel participated in the study. Of this number, 81 students (35.6 percent) reported having experienced maltreatment in the family setting. These students composed the research group (MC), and the other 145 students composed the comparison group (NMC). Resilience was measured by two variables: perceived competence and psychological distress. The moderating or buffering variables were sense of family coherence, psychological sense of school membership, and social support. The study found a significant difference between the MC and NMC in levels of perceived competence (higher for the NMC) and psychological distress (higher for the MC group). The moderating variables were found to have a differential effect on the dependent variables within the two groups. A sense of family coherence was found to be the main contributor to variance explanation of perceived competence among the MC, and sense of school membership had the main effect among NMC. These findings support a salutogenic approach in studying maltreated children. This report concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the detection of maltreated children in the community and for coping resources that may contribute to resilience. 9 tables and 50 references