Investigation of attitudes and behaviors of mothers in the context of abuse and neglect

This study is a comparative research on abusive/inoffensive and negligent/non-negligent maternal behaviors. The main purpose of the research is to adapt a measurement tool for the determination of abusive child-rearing attitudes and behaviors into Turkish and to hold individual interviews with mothers to determine the abusive and inoffensive child-rearing attitudes and behaviors. The research has a mixed study design consisting of two stages. In the first stage, that is, the quantitative stage, the relational screening model was used. Accordingly, "Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory-AAPI-2.1.", which was developed by Bavolek and Keene in 1999 and revised in 2017, has been adapted to Turkish to determine abusive child-rearing attitudes. The research sample was selected with the maximum diversity method. The participants of the research were 453 individuals (348 female, 105 male) over the age of 18. The data of this stage were collected through "Personal Information Form", "Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory", "Abuse Awareness Scale Parents Form" and "Family Life and Child Rearing Attitude Scale." Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory is a 5-point Likert type measurement tool consisting of 40 items. Confirmatory factor analysis, criterion-related validity, Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient, item analysis methods were used in testing the validity and reliability of the inventory. As a result of the statistical analyses, it is seen that the research findings support the validity and reliability of the inventory and that Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory is an appropriate measurement tool in determining abusive parental attitudes. In the second and qualitative stage of the research, Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory adapted by the researcher and "The Parents' Child Neglect and Abuse Scale" developed by Ünal (2017) were applied to parents, followed by in-depth interviews with 17 mothers with abusive/inoffensive child-rearing attitudes and behaviors. In this part of the research, Giorgi's "descriptive phenomenological research design", one of the qualitative designs, was used. The data collection process of the study was conducted with semi-structured interview forms. In line with the analyses made for the qualitative data, three main themes were obtained: "determinants of motherhood, methods used in child rearing and coping strategies." Sub-themes differ according to the abusive and inoffensive groups. In line with the findings, sources of mothers' attitudes and behaviors in child rearing were determined, and the contents of the main theme and sub-themes are presented in detail. Keywords: Abuse, neglect, mother, prevention, parent attitude, child rearing, validity, reliability