Type of violence, age, and gender differences in the effects of family violence on children’s behavior problems: A mega-analysis

A mega-analytic study was designed to exploit the power of a large data set combining raw data from multiple studies (n = 1870) to examine the effects of type of family violence, age, and gender on children’s behavior problems assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Our findings confirmed that children who experienced multiple forms of family violence were at greater risk than children who experienced only one form of abuse, and witnesses of inter-parental violence were at similar risk as victims of violence. Age moderated the effects of family violence on externalizing behavior problems, but not on internalizing behavior problems. No main or interaction effects involving children’s gender were evident. These results underscore the need to take children’s age, type of violence, and type of outcome into account when examining the effects of family violence on children’s behavior problems.