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Spanking and adult mental health impairment: The case for the designation of spanking as an adverse childhood experience
Open accessAbstract
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) such as child abuse are related to poor health outcomes. Spanking has indicated a similar association with health outcomes, but to date has not been considered an ACE. Physical and emotional abuse have been shown in previous research to correlate highly and may be similar in nature to spanking. To determine if spanking should be considered an ACE, this study aimed to examine 1): the grouping of spanking with physical and emotional abuse; and 2) if spanking has similar associations with poor adult health problems and accounts for additional model variance. Adult mental health problems included depressive affect, suicide attempts, moderate to heavy drinking, and street drug use. Data were from the CDC-Kaiser ACE study (N=8316, response rate=65%). Spanking loaded on the same factor as the physical and emotional abuse items. Additionally, spanking was associated with increased odds of suicide attempts (Adjusted Odds Ratios (AOR)=1.37; 95% CI=1.02 to1.86), moderate to heavy drinking (AOR)=1.23; 95% CI=1.07 to 1.41), and the use of street drugs (AOR)=1.32; 95% CI=1.4 to 1.52) in adulthood over and above experiencing physical and emotional abuse. This indicates spanking accounts for additional model variance and improves our understanding of these outcomes. Thus, spanking is empirically similar to physical and emotional abuse and including spanking with abuse adds to our understanding of these mental health problems. Spanking should also be considered an ACE and addressed in efforts to prevent violence.
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“Over a span of five decades, numerous cross-cultural studies, longitudinal investigations (Berlin et al., 2009; Gershoff et al., 2012), and large meta-analyses (Gershoff, 2002; Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor, 2016) provide converging evidence regarding the harmful outcomes, which include depression or depressed mood (Fergusson et al., 2008), antisocial behavior (Straus et al., 1997), substance use, Su”
From The evolved nest, oxytocin functioning, and prosocial development (2023) · cites this paper as Afifi et al. (2017)
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“This is consistent with previous findings investigating spanking alone, suggesting “spanking is empirically similar to physical and emotional abuse” (Afifi et al., 2017, p. 25).”
From The evolved nest, oxytocin functioning, and prosocial development (2023) · cites this paper as Afifi et al. (2017)
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Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Afifi, T. O., Ford, D., Gershoff, E. T., Merrick, M., Grogan-Kaylor, A., Ports, K. A., MacMillan, H. L., Holden, G. W., Taylor, C. A., Lee, S. J., & Peters Bennett, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Manitoba (CA)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- McMaster University (CA)
- Southern Methodist University (US)
- Tulane University (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- Afifi, Tracie O.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Child Abuse & Neglect
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-09
- Volume
- 71
- Pages
- 24-31
- ISSN
- 0145-2134 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7983058
- OpenAlex
- W2580781680
- Cited by
- 246
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 9
- FWCI
- 31.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Abuse & Neglect (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (CC999999)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Child Welfare and Adoption
- Keywords
- spanking, adverse childhood experiences, physical abuse, emotional abuse, adult mental health, suicide attempts, heavy drinking, street drug use, depressive affect, child abuse, violence prevention
- MeSH terms
- Physical Abuse, Adult, Alcoholism, Mental Disorders, Child, Child Abuse, Female, Humans, Life Change Events, Male, Manitoba, Risk Factors, Statistics as Topic, Suicide, Attempted, Odds Ratio, Substance-Related Disorders
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