The impact of exposure to domestic violence on children and young people: a review of the literature.

By S. Holt, H. Buckley, Sadhbh Whelan. International Journal of Child Abuse & Neglect, 2008

1,555 citations recorded by the source corpus.

OBJECTIVE This article reviews the literature concerning the impact of exposure to domestic violence on the health and developmental well-being of children and young people. Impact is explored across four separate yet inter-related domains (domestic violence exposure and child abuse; impact on parental capacity; impact on child and adolescent development; and exposure to additional adversities), with potential outcomes and key messages concerning best practice responses to children's needs highlighted. METHOD A comprehensive search of identified databases was conducted within an 11-year framework (1995-2006). This yielded a vast literature which was selectively organized and analyzed according to the four domains identified above. RESULTS This review finds that children and adolescents living with domestic violence are at increased risk of experiencing emotional, physical and sexual abuse, of developing emotional and behavioral problems and of increased exposure to the presence of other adversities in their lives. It also highlights a range of protective factors that can mitigate against this impact, in particular a strong relationship with and attachment to a caring adult, usually the mother. CONCLUSION Children and young people may be significantly affected by living with domestic violence, and impact can endure even after measures have been taken to secure their safety. It also concludes that there is rarely a direct causal pathway leading to a particular outcome and that children are active in constructing their own social world. Implications for interventions suggest that timely, appropriate and individually tailored responses need to build on the resilient blocks in the child's life. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS This study illustrate the links between exposure to domestic violence, various forms of child abuse and other related adversities, concluding that such exposure may have a differential yet potentially deleterious impact for children and young people. From a resilient perspective this review also highlights range of protective factors that influence the extent of the impact of exposure and the subsequent outcomes for the child. This review advocates for a holistic and child-centered approach to service delivery, derived from an informed assessment, designed to capture a picture of the individual child's experience, and responsive to their individual needs.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/554513b61a88a64354ebb0075c0bc76c00102c52

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

In Health

Citations in the corpus

Chapter 1. General introduction (2015, background): “Despite this, pioneers in liver surgery continued the quest for improving this challenging field of expertise and gradually mortality decreased to 5.6% [16].”
The Intergenerational Transmission of Intimate Partner Violence: Differentiating Correlates in a Random Community Sample (2012, background): “This presents the potential for IPV (see Holt et al. 2008).”
Challenges and burden of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for child and adolescent mental health: a narrative review to highlight clinical and research needs in the acute phase and the long return to normality (2020, background): “Exposure to domestic violence again significantly affects mental health of children [26, 27] and has the potential to create long-term consequences [28].”
Edleson Revisited: Reviewing Children’s Witnessing of Domestic Violence 15 Years Later (2016, background): “Since the publication of Edleson’s article, the negative or harmful impact of exposure to domestic violence has been well established in the literature (e.g., see Carpenter and Stacks 2009; Holt et al. 2008; Kitzmann et al. 2003 for full review of the literature).”
Beyond the Physical Incident Model: How Children Living with Domestic Violence are Harmed By and Resist Regimes of Coercive Control (2016, background): “These issues have been largely unconsidered in previous research, but may contribute significantly to the emotional and behavioural problems that children living with domestic violence often experience (Holt et al., 2008).”
The Causal Impact of Removing Children from Abusive and Neglectful Homes (2019, positive): “Abused children have lower academic performance and are more likely to have social or emotional conditions such as aggressive behavior or depression (Fantuzzo and Mohr, 1999; Wolfe et al., 2003; Holt et al., 2008; Aizer and Doyle, 2018).”
Factors Influencing Domestic and Marital Violence against Women in Ghana (2013, background): “Some studies, largely in advanced westernized societies, find that exposure to domestic violence in early years or across the lifespan may be linked to some psychological problems that may create conditions for violence against victims in the future (Becker et al. 2010; Holt et al. 2008; Kessler and”
The social ecology of resilience: addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. (2011, neutral): “…among war-affected children, emancipated child laborers (Denov & Maclure, 2007; Liebel, 2004; Panter-Brick, 2002; Taylor, 2005; Woodhead, 2004), and children who have been victims of violence or witnesses to its per-petration (Barber, 2006; Bolger & Patterson, 2003; Holt, Buckley, & Whelan, 2008).”
Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College (background): “5).90 While there can be no certainty about the precise chronological relationship between the outer mounds and the main mounded area, it is likely that at the time of its maximum Historic-period occupation, Akra was a sprawling urban site.”