Irish Child Sexual Abuse Victims Attending a Specialist Centre

• NCJ Number: 202172
• Journal: Child Abuse Review Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: May/June 2003 Pages: 190-204
• Author(s): Beth O'Riordan; Alan Carr; Rhonda Turner
• Date Published: May 2003
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This article discusses the results of a study on child sexual abuse (CSA) cases referred for assessment to a specialist center in a national pediatric hospital in Ireland.

Abstract

This study aims to build on the findings of other Irish studies by profiling a cohort of cases in which CSA had occurred or where there was a high probability that it had occurred on a wider range of variables than used in previous studies. The associations between variables such as circumstances of referral, demographic characteristics, family adversity, characteristics of abusive experiences, perpetrator characteristics, strategies to achieve compliance, and emotional and behavioral problems before and after the disclosure, were examined. The study was conducted in St. Louise’s Unite, a specialist child sexual abuse unit based in a hospital. Archival data for a cohort of 479 children and adolescents that were referred to the unit in 1997 and 1998 were analyzed. The results showed that the majority of cases were referred by social workers following purposeful disclosure of CSA. Three-quarters of the cases were female with a mean age of 9 years. They were from a wide spectrum of socioeconomic groups and many had suffered a range of family adversities. In most cases, the abuse involved masturbation of the child by the abuser. Almost all the perpetrators were male with a mean age of 28 years and in almost two-thirds of cases extra-familial abuse occurred. In almost a quarter of cases, the perpetrator had a history of previous sexual offending. Anxiety was the most common emotional problem before disclosure, and after disclosure the most common emotional problem was guilt. Before disclosure school refusal was the most common behavioral problem and after disclosure the most prevalent behavioral difficulty was fighting. The most common factors supporting the credibility of CSA allegations were labile mood, the ability to differentiate fact from fantasy, and a detailed disclosure of contextual details. 7 tables, 26 references