The relationship between risk factors and child endangerment

Abstract

Introduction. The purpose of this study was to examine which of the two models of risk (linear or threshold) suggested from prior research describes best the impact of risk on child endangerment best for toddlers between the ages of two and four years old in the Netherlands. Certain risk factors were investigated: family size, problems of the child, education level, mental illness, single and social isolation and coping strategies of the parents. It was expected that the linear model would describe the impact of risk the best. Method. 244 participants, consisting of the pedagogical caregivers of preschools and one parent for every toddler, took part in several questionnaires. Because 81% of the variables had incomplete data, multiple imputation by fully conditional specification (FCS MI) was used to complete the data set. Multiple and logistics regression-analyses were used to examine the models of risks. Results. Results confirms that the cumulative risk index predicts child endangerment. None of the risk factor individually predicted child endangerment significantly. Examination comparing the risk groups indicated that relative to the 0-risk group, none of the other risk groups had a significantly greater risk of child endangerment. Conclusion. The current research supports the linear risk model. There does not seem to appear a point which beyond children are at greater risk and that every risk factor we can reduce matters.