NCJ Number
229017
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 33 Issue: 12 Dated: December 2009 Pages: 870-876
Date Published
December 2009
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This New Zealand study examined the link between a person's having been sexually abused in childhood (CSA) and the number of abortions the person had in adolescence and early adulthood.
Abstract
The study found that the severity of CSA experienced was significantly associated with an increasing rate of abortions for CSA victims during the ages 15-25. This association varied according to potentially confounding childhood factors, but the association remained marginally statistically significant; however, controlling for the mediating effects of pregnancy risk in adolescence and early adulthood reduced the association between CSA and abortion in adolescence to early adulthood to statistical insignificance. Thus, the association between CSA and increased rate of abortion in adolescence into early adulthood was mediated by the increased rates of pregnancy linked to having experienced CSA. The data were collected as part of the Christchurch Health and Development Study (New Zealand), a longitudinal study of a birth cohort of 1,265 children born in the Christchurch urban region in mid-1977. The cohort has been studied at birth, 4 months, 1 year, and then at annual intervals to age 16 and again at ages 18, 21, and 25. The study has collected information from a variety of sources, including parental interviews, teacher report, self-reports, psychometric assessment, medical, and other record data. Retrospective reports of childhood sexual abuse (prior to age 16) were obtained from cohort members at ages 18 and 21 years. Sample members were interviewed at ages 15, 16, 18, 21, and 25 about pregnancy and abortions that occurred since the previous assessment. A range of covariate factors were selected for the study, i.e., family socioeconomic adversity, family instability, parental adjustment, and parental use of physical punishment. 3 tables and 35 references