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A study examined variables that might mediate the incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in 20 Australian child witnesses (ages 6-12) to domestic violence. Results found PTSD was not mediated by maternal emotional well-being, age and gender of the child, or the child's style of coping with parental conflict. (Author/CR)

A new operational definition of parental empathy and a new instrument, the Parental Empathy Measure (PEM), are introduced. With a sample of 103 parents (50 registered maltreating, 32 matched distressed, and 21 matched controls), the PEM demonstrated good internal consistency, very good interrater reliability, good construct validity, and very good concurrent validity. Keywords: child maltreatment, parent empathy, child abuse, child neglect