The Adverse Childhood Experiences Concept (ACE) in a Research Sample of Imprisoned Children of Addicted Parents

INTRODUCTION

The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) concept is based on the results of an American population-based cohort study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 1998. ACE is classified into three groups: abuse, neglect, and household challenges. The main goal of our work is the identification and description of factors affecting the psychosocial development of an individual in a family with a parent with a long-term addiction in relation to the development of a criminal career.

METHODS

The main research method was represented by the life stories of the participants. As the participants were incarcerated, the records of their life stories were not collected directly, but via the educational staff of the correctional facility. Transcriptions of the dialogues were segmented and the individual parts sorted into the corresponding categories. Thus, for each area, a hierarchically organised system of categories was created, which captured the biggest problems in all of the areas under analysis. During this part of the research, the ATLAS.ti program was used.

RESULTS

The below results were identified:

a) a high occurrence of the meaning categories Home environment and Neglect in the answers of the participants, predicting a significant relationship between home environment, neglect of children, and their risk behaviour in adolescence and adulthood,

b) the highest occurrence of the Home environment meaning category of the ACE model covering the violence, addictive substance use, and divorce segments,

c) the lowest occurrence of the Abuse of power toward a child ACE model meaning category, and

d) the highest occurrence of abuse and neglect of the participants on the emotional level. The trajectories of the participants show risk behaviour in their adolescence continuing into adulthood.

CONCLUSIONS

Regarding the results of the research, the need for resilience in the family was pointed out in addition to its resistance to stress-generating factors represented unequivocally by the meaning categories of the ACE model.