FAMILY VIOLENCE AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMATOLOGY AMONG INCARCERATED WOMEN

This study examines the potential association between witnessing paren tal violence as a child and Eater adult depressive symptomatology with in a population that has received limited attention in the scientific literature, namely, incarcerated women. The Conflict Tactics Scale and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale were administ ered to 60 women incarcerated in a maximum security prison in North Ca rolina. A majority of the women reported that they had witnessed verba lly aggressive or physically violent interactions among the adult memb ers in their families. Seventy percent of these women suffered from cl inically relevant levels of depressive symptomatology. Stepwise multip le linear regression analysis revealed that increasing levels of reaso ning conflict resolution strategies used in the women's families of or igin were associated with decreasing levels of depressive symptomatolo gy of the women, whereas increasing levels of physically violent confl ict resolution strategies were associated with increasing levels of de pressive symptomatology.