Risk Factor Profiles and Child Maltreatment Recurrence for and in Young Children

Se Won Kim | Department of Social Welfare, Catholic Kwandong University

Bong Joo Lee| Department of Social Welfare, Seoul National University

Joan. P. Yoo | Department of Social Welfare, Seoul National University

Sang Gyun Lee | Department of Social Welfare, the Catholic University of Korea

Hyun-Soo Kim | Graduate School of Education, Hanyang university

ABSTRACT

This study examined the profiles of risk factors related to child maltreatment in early childhood and explained the relationship between these profiles and child maltreatment recurrence. Latent class analysis was conducted for 21,304 cases in the National Child Maltreatment Information System. The results showed three latent classes of infants who were maltreated and their families: poverty, parenting challenges, and perpetrators’emotional problems group (8.2%); low-level problem group (85.6%); child internalizing problems and parenting challenges group (6.2%). Results also indicated two latent classes of toddlers who were maltreated and their families: child externalizing problem behaviors and perpetrators’ multiple problems group (7.4%); and a low-level problem group (92.6%). As a result of examining the distribution of child maltreatment recurrence among these groups, the probability of recurrence among the poverty, parenting challenges, and perpetrators’emotional problems group was 0.137, the highest among the three groups. In the child internalizing problems and parenting challenges group, the probability of recurrence was 0.106, and in the low-level problem group, the probability of recurrence was 0.096. The child externalizing problem behaviors and perpetrators’ multiple problems group had a 0.127 probability of recurrence, higher than the 0.098 probability of recurrence in the low-level problem group. Based on these research results, we discussed practical proposals for the prevention of child abuse.

KEYWORDS

Child maltreatment, Early childhood, Risk factor, Child maltreatment recurrence, Latent class

Korean Journal of Family Welfare, 69:1, 5-35, DOI: 10.16975/kjfsw.69.1.1