Patricia Jiménez-García

Universidad de Jaén | UJAEN · Department of Psychology

The first study is aimed to evaluate the relationships between child-to-parent violence and other types of juvenile violence, as well as to identify the variables that mediate these relationships. The sample will be composed by Spanish adolescents aged from 13 to 18 years from different high schools.The cultural perspective is also considered in this study. Concretely, the assessment protocol will be also applied to a sample of Chilean adolescents. The second study will assess to parents of adolescents aged from 13 to 18 years. One of the purposes of this Project is to identify relevant keys for the intervention on this problem.

Child-to-parent violence (CPV) is a social problem that has become a great concern among researchers, professionals, and general society. Despite the fact of the increasing number of studies on this topic in recent years, research is still scarce when comparing to other forms of intrafamily violence. Thus, it is necessary to further investigate on the psychosocial variables linked to the develpment of CPV. Moreover, there is a high discrepancy on the prevalence of this phenomenon among different researches, as in each study a different instrument to assess CPV, usually ad hoc, is used. In addition, advances in the conceptualization of CPV are not included in the instruments used. On the one hand, the current research project is intented to develop a specific CPV questionnaire including the variety of conducts regarded as CPV according to the classification by Cottrell (2001), as well as the frequency, severity, and the dimensions of power and control over a parent. On the other hand, this project is aimed to investigate some psychosocial variables related to CPV, in order to establish different psychosocial profiles of adolescents who assault their parents.The general objectives are the following: 1) to develop an instrument to assess the CPV in a wide Spanish sample from different regions; 2) to analyze the prevalence of CPV in a wide Spanish sample from different regions, and 3) to examine the relation between CPV and psychosocial variables in a wide Spanish sample from different regions. With these aims, 3 studies will be conducted. The first of them with adolescents from a community sample, the second with young offenders (both juveniles who han been reported by their parents for being violent toward them and other types of young offenders), and the third with college students, all of them from Jaén and Oviedo, two regions of Spain. A pilot study with each sample will be carried on, and then, after the items selection, a final instrument will be used together with the psychosocial measures. Concretely, it will be examine family structure (type of household, parents marital status, number of siblings, social-economic status, etc.), violence exposure, parenting styles, variables related to social information processing, emotional intelligence, justification of violence, reactive and proactive violence, impulsivity, drug use, and peers group.Consequently, this research project is intended to obtain prevalence rates of CPV indifferent regions from Spain, by developing an instrument that will be used by researchers and professionals of this field. Besides, this instrument will contribute to the early detection of this type of violence, in order to intervene on it as soon as possible. Furthermore, it is also aimed to deepen into the psychosocial variables linked to CPV and to establish differential profiles of juveniles who assault their parents, in order to enhance intervention programs with this population. The integral knowledge of this phenomenon is a crucial aspect to design programs and services that properly address the needs of these juveniles and their families.