Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2024 Apr;25(2):1150-1167.
doi: 10.1177/15248380231173427. Epub 2023 May 20.

Partner Effects of Childhood Maltreatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Marie-Pier Vaillancourt-Morel  1 , Ève-Line Bussières  1 , Marie-Chloé Nolin  1 , Marie-Ève Daspe  2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Partner Effects of Childhood Maltreatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Marie-Pier Vaillancourt-Morel et al. Trauma Violence Abuse. 2024 Apr.

Abstract

Although several studies have shown that childhood maltreatment (CM) is associated with a host of negative consequences including romantic relationship difficulties for victims in adulthood, most overlooked the potential effects on the romantic partner. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to comprehensively synthesize the literature on the association between a person's CM and their partner's individual and couple outcomes. We searched PubMed, PsycNET, Medline, CINAHL, and Eric using search strings related to CM and partner. We identified 3,238 articles after removal of duplicates; 28 studies met the inclusion criteria and relied on independent sample. The studies reported associations between a person's CM and a wide breadth of partner's negative couple outcomes (e.g., communication, sexuality) as well as intra-individual psychological difficulties (e.g., psychological distress, emotion, and stress reactivity). Meta-analytic results showed significant, but trivial to small associations between a person's CM and their partner's lower relationship satisfaction (r = -.09, 95% CI [-.14, -.04]), higher intimate partner violence (r = .08, [.05, .12]), and higher psychological distress (r = .11, [.06, .16]). These associations were similar for women and men and did not differ as a function of sample's mean age, proportion of cultural diversity, and publication year. These findings suggest that a person's CM is related to their partner's outcomes including to the partner's intra-individual outcomes. Prevention and intervention strategies should acknowledge that a person's CM may also affect their romantic partner, considering the couple as a reciprocal system, and offer victims' romantic partners specific services.

Keywords: abuse; childhood maltreatment; couple; dyadic; meta-analysis; neglect; partner effect; review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram of study selection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Arbel R., Rodriguez A. J., Margolin G. (2016). Cortisol reactions during family conflict discussions: Influences of wives’ and husbands’ exposure to family-of-origin aggression. Psychology of Violence, 6(4), 519–528. 10.1037/a0039715 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bai L., Han Z. R. (2016). Emotion dysregulation mediates relations between chinese parents’ histories of childhood emotional abuse and parenting stress: A dyadic data analysis. Parenting, 16(3), 187-205. 10.1080/15295192.2016.1158602 - DOI
    1. Banford Witting A., Busby D. M. (2022). The residuum of childhood physical and sexual abuse: Coming to terms in couple relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(9–10), 6186–6210. 10.1177/0886260520965972 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baranowsky A. B., Young M., Johnson-Douglas S., Williams-Keeler L., McCarrey M. (1998). PTSD transmission: A review of secondary traumatization in Holocaust survivor families. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 39(4), 247–256.
    1. Barnett A. J. (1993). Adult vicarious victims of child sexual abuse. Sexual and Marital Therapy, 8(1), 75–80. 10.1080/02674659308404502 - DOI