Associations between drug/alcohol use and emotional abuse: Who perpetrates emotional abuse against Latina women?

Abstract

Emotional abuse is the most prevalent form of violence against Latinas. We examined dimensions and characteristics of Latino mothers’ and daughters’ exposure to emotional abuse and the associations between emotional abuse and heavy alcohol use and illicit drug illicit substance abuse. This 5-year longitudinal study included 112 Latino mothers and 121 Latino daughters. Analyses included: chi-square test and logistic regression. The proportion of women who reported being emotionally abused at Wave 2 but who did not report any emotional abuse during Wave 1 (5 years total) was 21.2% for daughters and 14.3% for mothers. Among emotionally abused women, 33.3% of mothers and 36.1% of daughters were abused by 2 or more people. Almost half of the mothers (48.0%) were emotionally abused by their son/daughter; 36.1% of daughters were emotionally abused by their mother. Mothers who abused drugs were more likely to be emotionally abused (OR = 3.86; 95% CI = 1.32, 11.34). Our findings suggest that attention should be given to emotional abuse and its potential for leading to substance abuse among Latinas.