Adolescent Maltreatment and Risk Behaviors: A Comparison of Child Protective Service Reports and Youth Self-reports
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Adolescent Maltreatment and Risk Behaviors: A Comparison of Child Protective Service Reports and Youth Self‑reports Jiyoung K. Tabone1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Adolescence is a critical period in the development of close peer-relationships and identity formation. The degree of harm experienced by the maltreatment can be amplified by the subjective meaning the adolescent victim ascribes. Assessing maltreatment experience on adolescent victims’ perspective is critical to understand their subsequent risk behaviors in addition to Child Protective Service (CPS) reports. The current study explores how youth risk behaviors are predicted by maltreatment experiences which occurred between the ages of 12 and 16 by two different maltreatment informants, adolescent self-report and CPS reports. The study included 694 adolescents who completed self-report of maltreatment questions and also had available CPS records from Longitudinal Study of Child Abuse and Neglect. The findings of the study suggest that there are significant differences in predicting youth risk behaviors between CPS reports and youth self-reports. Adolescents’ subjective appraisals of their maltreatment experiences independently contributed to the prediction of their risk behaviors. Addressing youth’s perception of maltreatment experiences through self-reports in addition to CPS reports has significant implication for understanding their risk behaviors and working with them in practice settings. Keywords Adolescent maltreatment · Youth self-report · Risk behaviors · Child Protective Services · Multi-informants An estimate 4.1 million referrals of possible child abuse and neglect were made in the United States in 2016, and of those, approximately 676,000 children were determined by Child Protective Services (CPS) to be a victim of abuse and neglect (USDHHS, 2018). The majority of victims, more than 50%, were young children under age 6. Research continues to provide evidence to support the association between childhood maltreatment and later negative developmental outcomes (Egeland, Yates, Appleyard, & van Dulmen, 2002; Smith, & Thornberry, 1995; Taillieu, Brownridge, Sareen, & Afifi, 2016; Vachon, Krueger, Rogosch & Cicchetti, 2015). Adolescents represent a largely understudied population within child maltreatment (Cage, 2018; Butaney, Pelcovitz, & Kaplan, 2011; Smith, Ireland, & Thornberry, 2005). Adolescent maltreatment, ages 12 through 16, comprise approximately 20% of all victims across the United State (USDHHS, 2018). Smith et al. (2005) estimated that adolescent maltreatment rates ranged between 25 and 45% * Jiyoung K. Tabone [email protected] 1
School of Social Work, West Virginia University, PO Box 6830, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
of all maltreatment cases based on large-scale maltreatment studies. Adolescent maltreatment may result in different outcomes than those who experience maltreatment during childhood. Adolescence is a critical period in the development of close peer-relationships a
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