Purpose: Sibling violence is generally considered to be the most prevalent form of family violence. This paper aims to examine the association between sibling violence and other forms of violence: parent‐to‐parent violence, parent‐to‐child violence and dating violence.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 590 Portuguese university students.Findings: There was a strong positive association between sibling violence and other forms of family violence. Psychological and physical aggression is highly prevalent among siblings. Results also show that sibling violence is the most prevalent form of family violence. Regression models demonstrated that parent‐to‐child violence is a substantial predictor of sibling violence.Originality/value: The results of this study point to the importance of studying the co‐occurrence of different forms of family violence.

The transition of young people to residential care is caused, usually, by the need for removal from a dysfunctional environment, which can poten tially disrupt their healthy development and put them at a higher risk. Sibling relationships have been identified as critical to adapting to the developmental process. The present study analyzes whether sibling relationship quality can protect from the development of certain psychopathologies among adolescents from traditional families, as well as institutionalized adolescents. We also intend to analyze the differences in sibling relationship quality and psychopathological symptoms, according to the adolescents' family structure, gender and age. The sample consisted of 387 adolescents, 215 from traditional families and 172 in residential care, aged from 12 to 18 years old. The results show that siblings can play an important role in the prevention of psychopathological symptoms. Young people in residential care appear to have higher psychopathological symptoms; nevertheless, they also present higher levels of pro-social behaviors with siblings.