PREVALENCE AND REASONS FOR CHILD-TO-PARENT VIOLENCE IN SPANISH ADOLESCENTS: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN VICTIMS AND AGGRESSORS

Adolescent violence against parents is a phenomenon on the rise, which has promoted in recent years a growing body of research in different countries. However, to concrete the prevalence is complex, as victims tend to hide to abuse, so official data refer to those cases reported at the Juvenile Court. Studies with community samples of adolescents can provide information about the extent on this issue in general society. Nevertheless, literature reveals a great disparity of data on prevalence of child-to-parent violence across the studies and, furthermore, research about the reasons for these types of behaviours are very scarce. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the prevalence and the reasons for child-to-parent violence in a wide sample of Spanish adolescents, examining differences according to the aggressor's and the victim's gender. A total of 1,624 Spanish adolescents were assessed using the CPV-Q (Contreras, BustosNavarrete, & Cano-Lozano, 2019). Data revealed that mothers are the more frequent victims of the aggressions, being girls the more frequent aggressors in some types of violence. The more frequent reasons were temperament and the time to come home at night, with some differences among girls and boys. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the design of prevention and treatment programs.