Open AccessAssociations between drug/alcohol use and emotional abuse: Who perpetrates emotional abuse against Latina women?
Author(s) -
Mariano Kanamori,
Mario De La Rosa,
Jessica Weissman,
Patria Rojas,
María Elena Villar,
Mary Jo Trepka,
Frank R. Dillon,
Maritza Jaramillo
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of epidemiological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2377-9330
pISSN - 2377-9306
DOI - 10.5430/jer.v2n1p95
Subject(s) - psychological abuse , substance abuse , psychiatry , clinical psychology , domestic violence , psychology , medicine , suicide prevention , alcohol abuse , logistic regression , poison control , medical emergency
Emotional abuse is the most prevalent form of violence against Latinas. We examined dimensions and characteristics of Latino mothers’ and daughters’ exposure to emotional abuse and the associations between emotional abuse and heavy alcohol use and illicit drug illicit substance abuse. This 5-year longitudinal study included 112 Latino mothers and 121 Latino daughters. Analyses included: chi-square test and logistic regression. The proportion of women who reported being emotionally abused at Wave 2 but who did not report any emotional abuse during Wave 1 (5 years total) was 21.2% for daughters and 14.3% for mothers. Among emotionally abused women, 33.3% of mothers and 36.1% of daughters were abused by 2 or more people. Almost half of the mothers (48.0%) were emotionally abused by their son/daughter; 36.1% of daughters were emotionally abused by their mother. Mothers who abused drugs were more likely to be emotionally abused (OR = 3.86; 95% CI = 1.32, 11.34). Our findings suggest that attention should be given to emotional abuse and its potential for leading to substance abuse among Latinas.