Souce+Six

Clayton, A. (2004). Sexual abuse and mental health sequelae. Primary Psychiatry, 11(3), Retrieved from http://www.primarypsychiatry.com/aspx/articledetail.aspx?articleid=682

1. General population studies suggest that 13% to 17% of women and 2.5% to 5% of men report having suffered childhood sexual abuse.

2. Furthermore, outpatients with severe mental illness are at greater risk for sexual and physical abuse as adults than individuals without a psychiatric diagnosis.

3. Other factors associated with childhood abuse, including early repeated abuse, parental history of major psychiatric illness, and neglect, also affect psychiatric diagnosis and repeated victimization as adults.

4. General population studies demonstrate a 2-fold to 3-fold greater likelihood of physical or sexual abuse in children of parents with a severe mental illness.

5. Women with a history of childhood sexual abuse have a significantly increased risk of subsequently occurring depressive disorders, particularly atypical depression with hyperphagia and hypersomnia, and depression/dysthymia with comorbid anxiety disorders.

6. A history of childhood sexual abuse puts individuals with bipolar disorder at greater risk for suicide attempt than even the presence of a cluster B personality disorder.

7. Patients with panic disorder who report childhood physical or sexual abuse are more likely to be diagnosed with comorbid major depression and other Axis I diagnoses.

8. Patients with schizophrenia and childhood sexual abuse have poorer current role functioning, vulnerability to emotional turmoil, reduced information processing speed, and working memory deficits.

9. In women with schizophrenia and co-occurring substance abuse or dependence, high rates of trauma were reported, with >75% describing revictimization.

10. Earlier age of sexual abuse onset and significantly higher rates of physical and verbal abuse by the mother are associated with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

11. Individuals with documented physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect were four times more likely than those who were not abused to have personality disorder symptoms.

12. Abuse in adulthood is almost always preceded by abuse in childhood, and persons with severe mental illness and substance abuse disorders have increased vulnerablity to revictimization.

13. The revictimization often leads to worsening of psychiatric symptoms, and may expose women to other trauma such as sexually-transmitted diseases and homelessness.

14. Abuse plus poor maternal care have been associated with the development of anorexia nervosa, whereas childhood sexual abuse in early puberty has been linked to the onset of bulimia.

15. In women with bulimia, dissociation and submissiveness were linked to more severe forms of abuse.