Susanne Witte
German Youth Institute
Susanne Witte is a psychologist. She is working in child protection in various research projects. Her work includes training and ecucation of professionals to prevent child maltreatment as well as international aspects of child protection and comparative research on child protection systems. Her Phd thesis is about siblings in the context of abuse and neglect, specifically risk constellations, the impact on the sibling relationship, and psychological well-being.
Objectives: Siblings normally grow up in the same environment and thus share risk and protective factors for child maltreatment. Little research has considered the risk for child maltreatment of more than one child in a family. This study investigated the rates of similar experiences and risk constellations underlying different patterns of child maltreatment within adult sibling dyads.
Method: Data from 870 sibling pairs was collected using an online survey. Participants answered the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire as well as questions regarding their family situation and risk factors while growing up. The analyses with multinomial logistical regression models were carried out for different types of maltreatment as well as for any type of maltreatment.
Results: Overall, siblings reported very similar experiences of child maltreatment, with a substantial correlation for the number of different victimizations between siblings. The highest similarity was found for emotional neglect, physical abuse, and witnessing intimate partner violence. The analysis of risk constellations for the victimization of the older, the younger, or both siblings showed small effects based on gender constellation and age difference only for specific types of maltreatment and did not differentiate clearly between patterns of maltreatment status of siblings. On a family level, number of siblings, divorce of the parents during childhood and parents’ psychological problems were predictive of maltreatment of one or both siblings. In addition, father’s psychological problems were a risk factor for maltreatment of the younger only, and mother’s for maltreatment of the older only.
Conclusions: The results highlight the need for careful consideration of the risk to all children in a family. The risk has to be considered regardless of age difference between siblings or the gender constellation. More research is needed to understand the underlying processes in families putting more than one child at risk of child maltreatment in a family.
