Scherman, Avraham,Shultz, Shelli K.2013-08-162013-08-162001http://hdl.handle.net/11244/268The purpose of this study was to investigate the dose-effect relationship between substance use (alcohol and/or drug use) and several child physical abuse outcomes in a sample of abusive parents. Outcomes examined included severity of parental physical abuse behavior and degree of risk to engage in future abuse. Participants consisted of 62 abusive parents, ranging in age from 21 to 63 (M = 34.05, SD = 8.76), who agreed to participate in a federally-funded clinical trial for physically abusive parents and their children conducted at a children's hospital. Participants were referred to the project by the Child Protective Services (CPS) after a finding of confirmed or probable child physical abuse. The current study utilized pretreatment data from the larger study. Data was obtained from multiple sources including the abusive parent, the assigned CPS caseworker, and CPS case records. Five separate measures were used; four were completed by the abusive parent: The Child Abuse Potential Inventory, Diagnostic Interview Schedule Alcohol Module, Diagnostic Interview Schedule - Drug Module, and a demographic questionnaire. The remaining measure, the Abuse Dimensions Inventory, was completed by a trained evaluator on the basis of CPS records and caseworker report. Descriptive statistics, analyses of variance, multivariate analyses of variance, and Pearson product-moment correlations were performed to test the proposed hypotheses of a dose-effect relationship between parental substance use and child physical abuse. Overall, results did not offer support for a dose-effect relationship between substance abuse and either outcome measure. However, the findings did indicate that parents who reported two or more symptoms of both alcohol and drug disorders were at greater risk to engage in future abuse, compared to other parent participants. This group of parents also reported higher levels of personal distress, unhappiness, perceived loneliness, as well as lower levels of ego strength.viii, 121 leaves :Psychology, Social.Psychology, Behavioral.Child abuse.Abusive parents Alcohol use.Sociology, Individual and Family Studies.Sociology, Criminology and Penology.Abusive parents Drug use.Thesis