Alcohol use is a topic that is extremely prevalent in
today’s society. It has led to terrible outcomes and tragedy. Laslett, Room,
Dietze, and Ferris discuss Australian child abuse cases and whether the initial
recording of parent or guardian alcohol use predicts the recording of a second
incident. Based on past research they predicted that the strongest predictor of
repeat cases of child abuse would be either alcohol or drug abuse. The study
was conducted on the analysis of 29,455 children’s cases between 2001 and 2005
in the Victorian Child Protection Data System. Repeat cases of child abuse was
predicted from the interaction between drug and alcohol abuse. Whether the
abuse was from just alcohol abuse or just drug abuse, they both have the
ability to impact recurrent child maltreatment. A cause that could explain
recurring behavior is alcohol relapse. The parent or guardian may want to
change their drinking habits, but that can prove to be difficult. Along with
collecting the data about child abuse, type of family (blended, single parent,
intact, and extended family) was recorded. Intervention type was also taken
into account, whether the there was a court order needed, protective
interventions or a substantiation decision. Some limitations to this study is
that the data was gathered for a five year period of time from Australian child
protection services. This only provides a simple picture of the population.
Because of this the generalizability of these findings is low. Overall, alcohol
abuse is harmful, and can further lead to dangerous child abuse.
Citation:
Laslett, A. M., Room, R., Dietze, P.,
& Ferris, J. (2012). Alcohol's involvement in recurrent child abuse and
neglect cases. Addiction, 107 (10), 1786-1793. doi: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2012.03917.x
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