Conduct problems among children at battered women's shelters: Prevalence and stability of maternal reports

The present research was designed to (1) replicate prevalence estimates of clinical levels of conduct problems in a large (n = 401) sample of children residing at a shelter for battered women, and (2) assess the stability of mothers' reports of child conduct problems following shelter departure. Acc ording to mothers' reports on standardized questionnaires and diagnostic in terviews obtained during shelter residence, approximately one third of the children between 4 and 10 years of age exhibited clinical levels of conduct problems. Prior research has demonstrated elevated maternal distress durin g shelter residence and suggests that such distress may influence mothers' reports of child conduct problems. To examine this issue, a subset of famil ies with children exhibiting clinical levels of conduct problems (n = 68) w as reassessed following their shelter departure. Mothers' reports of child conduct problems remained stable despite significant reductions in mothers' distress after shelter exit.