NCJ Number
163224
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 20 Issue: 6 Dated: (June 1996) Pages: 511-526
Date Published
1996
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This study examined perceptions of abuse (psychological, physical, and sexual) and later adult psychological and social adjustment in a nonclinical sample of 173 individuals.
Abstract
The subjects consisted of a nonclinical sample of 174 parents with children between the ages of 1 and 10 who were recruited from primary care pediatric settings and public swimming pools in Charlottesville, Va., and Northern Virginia. The subjects consisted of a community rather than a clinical sample, and it is assumed that the presence of abuse or clinical pathology reflects the base-rate for the population. The instruments used to measure maltreatment were the psychological and physical maltreatment scales and the Sexual Maltreatment Scale. Measures of Personality were the California Psychological Inventory and the Self-Esteem Inventory. The Quality of Relationships Inventory measured adult relationships. A subgroup of abused individuals reported levels of abuse above the mean but failed to acknowledge themselves as abused (minimizers). Analyses of variance showed that abused individuals, both acknowledgers and minimizers, consistently had more psychological and social adjustment problems than the nonabused group. In addition, individuals who fell in the minimizing subgroup had more detrimental outcomes than the abused (acknowledgers) group in a few areas, suggesting that the perception of past events (abuse) may be an important factor in determining future psychological adjustment. 4 tables and 36 references