Children whose mothers have a history of abuse by intimate partners have higher health care needs than children whose mothers have no history of abuse, according to a study conducted at Group Health, a Seattle-based health plan.
These needs - expressed in terms of the cost of providing care and use of health services - were higher even if the abuse occurred before the children were born, the research team found. Scientists from Group Health Center for Health Studies, Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC), and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute conducted the study, which appeared in the December 2007 issue of the journal Pediatrics.
“Children are the other victims when intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs in the home,” said lead author Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH. “This study shows that children require more health care--especially for mental health--when their mothers are victims of such violence.”
Rivara is a researcher with HIPRC and Children's. The principal investigator for the study is Robert S. Thompson, MD, senior investigator at Group Health Center for Health Studies.
The study compared medical records and utilization data from 631 children of mothers with a history of IPV with those of 760 children whose mothers had not experienced IPV. The mothers—who participated in a randomly sampled telephone survey of Group Health female members aged 18 to 64—provided the information regarding their lifetime history with IPV. The study defines IPV as both physical abuse (slapping, hitting, forced sex) and nonphysical abuse (threats, and chronic disparaging remarks or controlling behavior.) The researchers looked at 11 years of data.
Among the mothers in the study, 46.6 percent reported experiencing IPV since age 18. Among the children of mothers with IPV, the violence stopped before they were born for 21.8 percent. For 23.6 percent, the violence happened during the children's lifetime.
Previous studies have shown that children exposed to IPV in the home have increased risk for many problems, including also being abused at home; school problems; poor health; risk-taking behavior; and becoming perpetrators of violence.
In 2006, the Group Health study team published evidence that IPV resulted in significantly higher health utilization and costs for women. This current study is the largest ever to examine the link between mother's exposure to IPV and their children's health utilization and costs. The study is also unique in that it examined a large middle-class population and one that is very representative of Seattle, said Rivara.
“Intimate partner violence harms everyone in our society, and it must be viewed as not acceptable either for women or their children,” he added.
The researchers found: