NCJ Number
205250
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 25 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2001 Pages: 1303-1327
Date Published
October 2001
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This study examined the rates of sexual abuse in childhood, adolescence, and ages 16 and older among 652 Palestinian undergraduate students from the Palestinian Authority; the psychological consequences of any sexual victimization were also examined.
Abstract
Data were obtained through a self-administered instrument package that consisted of several scales that measured sexual knowledge and awareness, sexual abuse, psychological states, and sociodemographic information. Sexual abuse was distinguished among three types of perpetrators: a family member, a relative, and a stranger. Of the 652 participants, 5.7 percent had been sexually abused once by a family member before the age of 12; 11.6 percent of the participants indicated being sexually abused once by a relative at that age; and 13.2 percent of the participants reported being sexually abused once by a stranger at that age. Regarding the sum of experiences with acts of sexual abuse, the results revealed that 4.1 percent, 7.3 percent, and 8.6 percent of the participants indicated that between the ages of 12 and 16, one of the acts of sexual abuse described in the scale had been perpetrated by a family member, a relative, and a stranger, respectively. After the age of 16 , 1.7 percent, 3.9 percent, and 7 percent of the participants reported they had experienced one act of sexual abuse listed in the scale. For each of the of the age periods, data were also reported on those who had been victimized by two to four of the sexual acts listed in the scale, as well as five or more of them. The study concluded that the rates of sexual abuse among the Palestinian students fell within the range of the rate of sexual abuse in many other societies. Similar rates of sexual abuse were found among female and male students. The sexually abused participants manifested significantly higher levels of psychoticism, hostility, anxiety, somatization, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, depression, obsessive-compulsiveness, and psychological distress compared with their nonabused counterparts. Sexual abuse by different perpetrators at different ages significantly explained between 20.7 percent and 35.8 percent of the variance in these psychological symptoms. The authors advise that the findings indicate the need for additional research into various aspects and dimensions of sexual abuse in Arab societies. 7 tables and 19 references