NCJ Number
145373
Journal
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Dated: (1993) Pages: 13-22
Date Published
1993
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study used a sample of 196 college students who were divided into five groups: 11 who had been sexually abused as children, had been amnesiac about the abuse for some time, but were not longer amnesic; 14 who did not remember ever being abused, but wondered if they had been; 21 who had been physically abused without ever being amnesiac; 12 who had been sexually abused without ever being amnesiac; and 136 controls who had never been physically or sexually abused.
Abstract
Subjects completed a survey of childhood experiences as well as the 28-item, self-report Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). The results showed that the group who had wondered if they had ever been abused has similar scores to the group that had been amnesiac for sexual abuse, but now remembered their experiences. The groups that had been physically or sexually abused but never amnesiac did not differ from the control group. Over 25 percent of the subjects in the amnesia groups scored over 30 on the DES; high scores have been associated with multiple personality disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. All groups had some scores over 30 and some subjects in each of the amnesia groups had low scores, indicating that the DES in itself is not enough to diagnose amnesia or repression of an abusive experience. 4 tables and 9 references