Long-Term Effects of Contact and Noncontact Forms of Child Sexual Abuse in a Sample of University Men

• NCJ Number: 153316
• Journal: Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 19 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1995) Pages: 1-6
• Author(s): S J Collings
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 6 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

In examining the long-term effects of child sexual abuse in a sample of 284 university men, this study found that a history of abuse involving physical contact was associated with elevated scores on all subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory, after controlling for the effects of dysfunctional parenting behavior.

Abstract

Study subjects included 284 male undergraduates in social science classes at the University of Natal in South Africa. The average age of respondents was 19.7 years; 61 percent were Caucasian, 19 percent Asian, 16 percent black, and 4 percent other racial groups. The study questionnaire contained items related to victim demographics and family background, various measures of psychological adjustment, and a childhood sexual victimization survey. The following inclusive definition of child sexual abuse was used: unwanted sexual experiences that occurred before the boy was 18 years of age, involving either contact or noncontact forms of abuse. The major outcome measure used in the study was the Brief Symptom Inventory, a 53-item self-report checklist scored in terms of nine primary symptom dimensions: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. Study subjects were divided in three groups: control group with no abusive childhood sexual experiences (202 subjects), noncontact abuse group (56 subjects), and contact abuse group (26 subjects). No significant main differences were observed between noncontact and control groups. In addition, there was no consistent tendency for noncontact abuse subjects to score in a more deviant direction than controls. Significant differences, however, between contact and control groups showed that sexual abuse was associated with greater deviance in all cases. A history of abusive and/or rejecting approach to parenting significantly predicted both contact and noncontact forms of sexual abuse. Implications of the study findings for research, intervention, and social policy are discussed. 23 references and 1 table