The missing link between poverty and child maltreatment: Parental burnout

Background Child maltreatment remains a major social welfare and public health issue. The relationship between SES and child maltreatment has been intensively studied. And syntheses of meta-analyses have identified low SES as one of the five major antecedents of child maltreatment. Objective The underlying mechanism that explains the association between low SES and child maltreatment, has however not been clearly demonstrated. Participants and setting In a sample of 3429 parents (51.53 % low SES), we postulated a double mediation to explain this relationship, namely that low SES increased the imbalance between the parent's risk and resource factors, and that this imbalance in turn increased parental burnout, which itself increased parental neglect and violence. Methods We estimated three successive models encompassing the direct and indirect effects of low SES on the imbalance between risk and resource factors, parental burnout, parental neglect and parental violence. Results The results provide little support for the direct effect of poverty on parental burnout, parental neglect and parental violence. They rather confirm the mediating role of the imbalance between risk and resource factors and parental burnout. Conclusions Parental burnout could be the missing link between poverty and child maltreatment. The results are discussed for research and clinical purposes