Maternal social support patterns and child maltreatment: Comparison of maltreating and nonmaltreating mothers

Compared to demographically matched mothers, maltreating mothers listed fewer friends in their social support networks, reported less contact, with friends, and gave lower ratings of quality of support received from friends. Maternal depressive symptoms, quality of current relationships, and social support from friends were each independently, associated with maltreatment status in logistic regression analysis, Implications for intervention and research are offered.