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This study investigated the association between exposure to child maltreatment and dating physical violence in the affective-sexual relationship among adolescents (n =397, 14-19 years). A mediation model was conducted to determine whether these associations can be mediated by early maladaptive schemas (EMS), from the Schema Therapy's theoretical approach. Also, it sought to verify the invariant model by gender. The results showed that teen dating violence perpetrators with a history of child maltreatment had significantly higher scores in the perpetration of intimate violence than adolescents with no history of maltreatment. Disconnection and rejection realm schemas were mediators between exposure to child maltreatment and dating physical violence in adolescence, and this model was adequate to females. The clinical implications of these findings were also discussed.

Violence is a serious public health problem and notification of incidents is fundamental for epidemic surveillance and for the definition of priorities and public politics of health prevention and promotion. The study sought to characterize the occurrence of domestic violence, sexual and other forms of violence, based on the information of the database of the Information System of Notification of Offences (Sinan), on the records of violence of the city of Belém in the state of Pará, in the period from January 2009 to December 2011. In this period 3,267 notifications were recorded, which represented an increase of 240% in the number of notifications of the year 2009 compared to 2011. In relation to the sex of the victims it was observed that, on average, 83.2% of cases against women and this proportion was similar in all three years analyzed. Sexual violence was the most prevalent with 41.8% of reported cases; followed by psychological violence at 26.3% and physical violence at 24%. The results show that notification is fundamental for understanding the profile of violence and for intervention and elaboration of integrated public politics that promote health and the quality of life in this area of Brazil.

This paper investigated the occurrence and impact of stressing events for 297 low- income children/adolescents (both sexes; 7-16 years, M =11.22; SD = 2.13) in the city of Porto Alegre. Group 1 (G1) consisted of 142 participants (living with their families) and Group 2 (G2) of 155 institutionalized individuals. All were individually interviewed and answered the Stressing Events Inventory for Children/Adolescents. The most frequent stressing events for the sample were: follow orders given by the parents (85.2%); quarrels with friends (72.9%); death of relatives (71.8%); failure at school (69.2%); and rivalry of siblings (68%). Student's t-test revealed significant difference between groups (p <0,001) regarding the occurrence of stressing events, G2 presented higher scores (M = 26.79; SD = 8.67) than G1 (M = 19.16; SD = 9.37). The events that caused the greatest impact upon the studied group were: death of parents and friends, rape, rejection by relatives and violence. There was no significant difference between sexes (p>0.05). The high frequency and strong impact of stressing events reveal the situation of social and familiar vulnerability, presence of violence and lack of resources in the whole group.