Objectives: Cognitional, behavioral, social and emotional functions of violence predictor, victim and child called forgotten victim and unintentional victim are found to be affected by domestic violence. Domestic violence affects children even if they are not the direct victim but have a close relationship with the victim. Hence the aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between exposure to inter-parental physical violence and 4 areas of self-esteem in college students, in Tabriz-East Azerbaijan province in Iran-2008/09.

Method: The study was a retrospective questionnaire survey. Data of a probability sample of second and third year graduate students (n=177) of Humanity and Social Sciences Faculty of Tabriz university was collected by using a couple of questionnaires named the questionnaire of inter parental physical violence composed of 30 questions, and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Scale. The inventory exposure to physical violence between parents was sent to three experts and scholars in the field of family violence to examine scale’s content validity and cultural relevance and was obtained to be reliable (α =0.76). The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Scale was utilized to collect related information about 4 areas of self-esteem (home, social, academic and general) and was attained to get a good reliability coefficiency (0.83).

Findings: In the current study, there were 89 female participants (%50.3) and 88 male participants (%49.7) who fulfilled both mentioned questionnaires. 62.1% of study members were the second year undergraduate students (39% females) and 37.9% of them were the third (26.6% males). The mean age of the participants was 20.97 years (SD1.77) with a range between 18 and 34 years old. Within the 177-undergraduate-student sample, 61.02% (n=108) of the respondents reported exposure no violence, and 38.98% (n=69) were exposed to inter-parental physical violence. It is about a fourth of female students and about a second of male students who reported exposure. Research results demonstrated students who had exposed to inter-parental physical violence had significantly lower home self-esteem than participants did not report such a witness. This finding was in harmony with the theory of Post Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD), Emotional Security Hypothesis, as well as family Disruption Hypothesis. Also the study suggested that male participants who exposed to inter-parental physical violence reported lower academic self-esteem than those exposed none at all.

Results: According to the findings, graduate student’s lower home self-esteem and lower academic self-esteem for male graduate students are considered in families with inter-parental physical violence during childhood and adolescence. While being acquainted with the consequences of exposure to domestic violence between parents, to support and protect unintentional victims - children - from its various inconveniences is quite vital