Drawing on previous research on intimate partner violence, child maltreatment, and informal
social control, we hypothesized relationships between child abuse severity and (1) protective informal
social control of intimate partner violence (ISC_IPV) by neighbors, (2) intimate terrorism, (3) family
order, and (4) the power of mothers in intimate relationships. In what we believe may be a first study of
physical child abuse by parents in Nepal, we used a three stage cluster approach to draw a random
sample of 300 families in Kathmandu. Random effects regression models were used to test the study
hypotheses. The analyses found support for hypotheses one and two, but with an important caveat.
Although observed (actual) protective ISC_IPV had the hypothesized negative association with child
abuse severity, in one of our models perceived protective ISC_IPV was positively associated with child
abuse severity. The models clarify that the overall direction of protective ISC_IPV appears to be
negative (protective), but the positive finding is important to consider for both research and practice. A
significant relationship between family order and child abuse severity was found, but the direction was
negative rather than positive as in hypothesis three. Implications for neighborhood research and
typological research on IPV and child maltreatment are discussed.