Predictors of maternal support following children's sexual abuse disclosures

Despite the importance of parental support following children's sexual abuse (CSA) disclosures, there is a dearth of research regarding the predictors of support. Much of the prior literature is limited by the use of small sample sizes, measures of support without adequately reported psychometric properties, and inadequate or inconsistent definitions of support, which hinders the ability to accurately identify key predictors. Further, some potentially important predictors of parental support remain unexplored, including child-reported abuse stressors (e.g., family conflict, nonsupportive disclosure responses). The present study aimed to better delineate predictors of maternal belief and emotional support by examining the links between child, maternal, and family factors, and abuse characteristics as reported by both mothers and children. Two hundred and forty-seven treatment-seeking children (M age = 9.24, SD = 3.74) and their non-offending mothers were included in the study. Select demographic factors (i.e., child's age, minority status), abuse characteristics (i.e., use of penetration, repeated CSA incidents, and amount of CSA characteristics known), and child-reported abuse stressors were tied to levels of maternal belief and/or emotional support. Maternal and family characteristics were unrelated to support. The child's age and whether the abuse occurred more than once remained robust predictors of both aspects of support in multivariate analyses. The amount of CSA information known to the mother predicted emotional support, which may signal the utility of increasing parental knowledge of the abuse to bolster their emotional support. Findings indicate that there are several factors that may influence levels of maternal support, and children who experience certain types of CSA may be at greater risk for lower levels of belief and support.