NCJ Number
177507
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 23 Issue: 7 Dated: July 1999 Pages: 683-692
Date Published
1999
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study explored gender differences in the psychological/psychiatric symptomatology among sexual abuse survivors by using a standardized measure of specific symptom patterns, the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R).
Abstract
Participants were 162 women and 25 men who were entering an outpatient treatment program for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a university-based community mental health center. Symptomatology was measured with the SCL-90-R. Findings show that although no differences appeared among the subjects when examining the raw data, the results changed dramatically once the data were converted into T-scores and epidemiological SCL-90-R gender differences were taken into account. The findings show that men exhibited significantly more interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and phobic anxiety than women in relation to their respective normative samples. The findings suggest that once the normative, nonclinical data are taken into account, a pattern of gender differences in symptomatology among sexual abuse survivors emerges. This study refutes previous findings that men and women CSA survivors exhibit the same or similar patterns of psychopathology. Some researchers have suggested than men may respond to CSA with aggressive and impulsive behavior; whereas, women react with more internalizing symptomatology, such as depression and revictimization. The current study shows just the opposite, i.e, that men are more likely to be depressed compared to non-abused men than are women compared to non-abused women. In terms of anxiety, the current study's findings are consistent with that of Hunter (1991), who found that men survivors of CSA experienced more anxiety, rumination, and worry than women survivors. 2 tables and 40 references