Childhood sexual abuse: A gender perspective on context and consequences

Abstract

Literature on gender and child sexual abuse (CSA) has high-lighted patterns of similarity and difference among survivors and the need for further research. This study relied on gender analysis of 128 women and 69 men, obtained through an examination of childhood hospital records, to further examine gender differences in mental health outcomes among abuse survivors and correlates of mental health outcomes including professional help seeking, family environment, and other trauma exposure. Overall, men and women were similar in the context and consequences of CSA. The role of the characteristics of CSA and contextual variables in explaining variance in mental health for 106 male victims and nonvictims was also examined. Among male participants, number of incidents of sexual abuse, injury at the hands of a caregiver, and exposure to other traumas significantly explained higher levels of an array of mental health symptoms. Implications for future research are discussed.

Department

Psychology

Publication Date

8-2004

Journal Title

Child Maltreatment

Publisher

Sage Publications

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1177/107755904266914

Document Type

Article

Rights

© 2004 Sage Publications

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