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Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway

It is increasingly acknowledged that companion animal abuse often occurs in the same contexts as other types of abuse, particularly domestic abuse. However, the co-occurrence and strengths of these associations in the general population have not been well established in research. With data from a la...

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Autores principales: Muri, Karianne, Augusti, Else-Marie, Bjørnholt, Margunn, Hafstad, Gertrud Sofie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9679564/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35156447
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605211072176
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author Muri, Karianne
Augusti, Else-Marie
Bjørnholt, Margunn
Hafstad, Gertrud Sofie
author_facet Muri, Karianne
Augusti, Else-Marie
Bjørnholt, Margunn
Hafstad, Gertrud Sofie
author_sort Muri, Karianne
collection PubMed
description It is increasingly acknowledged that companion animal abuse often occurs in the same contexts as other types of abuse, particularly domestic abuse. However, the co-occurrence and strengths of these associations in the general population have not been well established in research. With data from a large representative sample of Norwegian adolescents, we aimed to determine 1) the extent to which Norwegian children are exposed to companion animal abuse in the family, 2) whether and how companion animal abuse is linked to other forms of domestic abuse that children experience, and 3) background factors associated with companion animal abuse. A total of 9240 adolescents aged 12–16 years (M(age) 14.7) participated in the digital school-based survey. Four percent (n = 380) reported that they had ever witnessed a parent being violent towards a family companion animal, whereas 1% (n = 125) had experienced that an adult in the household had threatened to harm a companion animal. There was a substantial overlap between companion animal abuse and child abuse, and it most frequently co-occurred with psychological abuse and less severe forms of physical child abuse. This resonates with conceptualizations of domestic abuse as an ongoing pattern of psychological abuse and coercive control. The risk factors identified for companion animal abuse in this representative sample of adolescents were similar to known risk factors for domestic abuse. Low socioeconomic status and parents’ substance abuse, parents’ psychiatric illness, and parents’ history of incarceration entailed a greater risk of experiencing companion animal abuse. We conclude that companion animal abuse co-occurs with other forms of domestic abuse and that it may be considered a part of the repertoire of domestic abuse that impacts children.
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spelling pubmed-96795642022-11-23 Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway Muri, Karianne Augusti, Else-Marie Bjørnholt, Margunn Hafstad, Gertrud Sofie J Interpers Violence Original Articles It is increasingly acknowledged that companion animal abuse often occurs in the same contexts as other types of abuse, particularly domestic abuse. However, the co-occurrence and strengths of these associations in the general population have not been well established in research. With data from a large representative sample of Norwegian adolescents, we aimed to determine 1) the extent to which Norwegian children are exposed to companion animal abuse in the family, 2) whether and how companion animal abuse is linked to other forms of domestic abuse that children experience, and 3) background factors associated with companion animal abuse. A total of 9240 adolescents aged 12–16 years (M(age) 14.7) participated in the digital school-based survey. Four percent (n = 380) reported that they had ever witnessed a parent being violent towards a family companion animal, whereas 1% (n = 125) had experienced that an adult in the household had threatened to harm a companion animal. There was a substantial overlap between companion animal abuse and child abuse, and it most frequently co-occurred with psychological abuse and less severe forms of physical child abuse. This resonates with conceptualizations of domestic abuse as an ongoing pattern of psychological abuse and coercive control. The risk factors identified for companion animal abuse in this representative sample of adolescents were similar to known risk factors for domestic abuse. Low socioeconomic status and parents’ substance abuse, parents’ psychiatric illness, and parents’ history of incarceration entailed a greater risk of experiencing companion animal abuse. We conclude that companion animal abuse co-occurs with other forms of domestic abuse and that it may be considered a part of the repertoire of domestic abuse that impacts children. SAGE Publications 2022-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9679564/ /pubmed/35156447 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605211072176 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Articles
Muri, Karianne
Augusti, Else-Marie
Bjørnholt, Margunn
Hafstad, Gertrud Sofie
Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway
title Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway
title_full Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway
title_fullStr Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway
title_full_unstemmed Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway
title_short Childhood Experiences of Companion Animal Abuse and its Co-Occurrence with Domestic Abuse: Evidence from a National Youth Survey in Norway
title_sort childhood experiences of companion animal abuse and its co-occurrence with domestic abuse: evidence from a national youth survey in norway
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9679564/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35156447
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605211072176
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