Peer-reviewed article
Risk and Protective Factors for Experiencing Domestic Violence in Children with Disabilities: A Scoping Review.
Du W, Peng XY, Li W, Attiq-Ur-Rehman, Ge MW et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This scoping review examined risk and protective factors for domestic violence experienced by children with disabilities across 19 published studies. Risk factors were found at multiple levels: individual factors like cognitive and neurodevelopmental disabilities, family factors such as parental substance abuse and violence history, and societal factors including conflict-affected areas. Protective factors included higher parental education, family affluence, and positive parent-child relationships. The review highlights significant gaps in current research and calls for multi-tiered interventions including legal protections, violence assessment protocols, economic support, and awareness campaigns.
Key points
- Children with disabilities experience domestic violence at increasing rates, but evidence on specific risk factors remains limited
- Cognitive and neurodevelopmental disabilities present higher vulnerability to domestic violence than other disability types
- Risk factors interact across individual, family, and societal levels to compound vulnerability to violence
- Parental education, family affluence, and positive parent-child relationships serve as protective factors against domestic violence
- Current research lacks formal quality appraisal and shows publication bias, limiting definitive conclusions
Limitations
This is a scoping review mapping current evidence rather than providing definitive effect estimates; the authors note publication bias and lack of formal quality appraisal limits the strength of conclusions. The review cannot establish causal relationships or provide comparative effectiveness of interventions.
Abstract
The incidence of domestic violence (DV) in children with disabilities (CWD) is increasing, making it crucial to assess associated risk and protective factors. Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, this scoping review aimed to assess the risk and protective factors for DV in CWD, review the current research progress, and highlight knowledge gaps to guide future studies. Six electronic databases were searched for studies published up to July 2025. Preliminary searches identified 1,564 records. After removing duplicates, non-English publications, and studies that did not meet the inclusion criteria, 19 articles were included. Given publication bias and lack of formal quality appraisal, findings should be interpreted as a map of current evidence rather than definitive effect estimates. The results demonstrate that risk factors across individual, microsystem (familial), and macrosystem (societal) levels can interact to compound vulnerability. Specific disability types (especially cognitive and neurodevelopmental disorders), certain child-related characteristics (especially disability severity, physical/mental comorbidities), family-originated characteristics (especially poor parental health, substance abuse, low education, violence history, economic difficulties), and societal risk factors (living in conflict-affected areas) may increase victimization risks. Higher parental education, greater family affluence, and positive parent-child relationships appear to mitigate the risk of violence. This study underscores the critical need for a multi-tiered intervention framework to safeguard CWD from DV. This necessitates integrated measures encompassing: enhancing legal protections and policy enforcement, establishing robust violence assessment and identification protocols specifically for CWD, providing targeted economic assistance to disadvantaged families, and implementing comprehensive societal awareness campaigns against violence.