NCJ Number
205504
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal Volume: 25 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2001 Pages: 973-988
Date Published
July 2001
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This study first examined the relationship of key mediators of child sexual abuse with psychological measures of well-being, and second, explored whether African-American adolescent females with a history of child sexual abuse differ in levels of psychological functioning and family discord from their counterparts without the child sexual abuse history.
Abstract
While research has shown that child sexual abuse can have deleterious psychological outcomes for its victims, not all abuse victims experience psychological distress. In the current study, only African-American females were recruited because of the higher rate of childhood sexual abuse among this demographic. Participants were 249 sexually active females between the ages of 14 and 19 years who were recruited from the Milwaukee Adolescent Health Program (MAHP). Participants completed a 114-item questionnaire that probed issues of childhood sexual abuse, psychological functioning, and family discord. Additionally, two subscales of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire assessed childhood history of physical and emotional abuse; Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem scale assessed global feelings of self-worth; and the Beck Depression Inventory probed for abnormal levels of depression. The Emotional Support subscale of the Interpersonal Orientation Scale and the Cohesion and Conflict subscales from the Family Environment Scale were used to assess emotional support perceptions and family interactions. Results of statistical analyses including multiple regression analyses revealed that 22.9 percent of the 249 participants had been victims of childhood sexual abuse; 44.3 percent of which involved intrafamilial abuse and 55.7 percent involved interfamilial abuse. Greater duration of abuse was predictive of higher levels of depression and lower levels of self-esteem among the participants with a history of childhood sexual abuse. Participants with a history of childhood sexual abuse also reported higher levels of family conflict and physical and emotional abuse. Other findings included the greater prevalence of interfamilial abuse compared to intrafamilial abuse, which suggests the need for greater supervision in meetings with family friends and other visitors. Overall, the findings suggest that victims of childhood sexual abuse suffer a wide range of deleterious psychological sequelae however, due to the cross-sectional nature of the design, causal inferences are not able to be drawn between childhood sexual abuse and subsequent psychological functioning. Future studies should focus on a prospective analysis that elucidates the mechanisms linking childhood sexual abuse and family discord with negative psychological functioning. Tables, references