어머니의 성격특성, 부부갈등과 유아의 문제행동이 아동학대잠재성에 미치는 영향

Effects of Mother"s Personality Characteristics, Marital Conflict and Young Children"s Problem Behaviors on Mothers" Child Abuse Potential

  Child abuse potential of mothers with young children between 3-5 years old. Milner(l986)"s concept of child abuse potential was examined with socio-demographic backgrounds, mother"s personality characteristics, marital conflict, and child"s problem behaviors. The subjects of this study were 295 mothers of young children and self-administered questionnaires were collected. Data were analyzed with SPSSWIN 10.0 statistical package; t-test, ANOVA and hierarchical regression analysis were adopted to examine the relative explanatory power of models. The results were; first, mothers" perceived health condition brought statistically meaningful differences in mother"s personality characteristics and marital conflict. Mothers with daughters were more obsessive, those who with more than two daughters reported higher marital conflict. Second, the hierarchical regression analysis showed that the most powerful variable explaining mothers" abuse potential were mothers" personality characteristics, marital conflict followed by internal problem behaviors of children. The model"s explanatory power was proved to be 65%. Specifically, mothers were more obsessive and neurotic, perceived higher marital conflict and considered their children having internal behavioral problems were prone to child abuse potential. Findings suggest increase of support systems both formal and informal for mothers with young children to ameliorate personality mishaps and to help solving the marital conflict effectively.