Child sexual abuse: prevalence, impacts, and prevention

Child Sexual Abuse in Kilpatrick, et al. (2003)

This work in writing conducted an article review of the work of Kilpatrick, et al. (2003).

The article under review in this work in writing is that written by Kilpatrick, et al. (2003) entitled "Violence and Risk of PTSD, Major Depression, Substance Abuse / Dependence and Comorbidity: Results From the National Survey of Adolescents." This article reports a study involving 4,034 youth ages 12 to 17 years of age. Sample selection and interviewing are reported to have been conducted by "Schulman, Ronca and Eucuvalas, Inc." (Kilpatrick, et al., 2003) It is reported that a telephone interview that was highly structured in nature was designed for the purpose of collecting information "across several domains, including demographic and familial variables, trauma history and the three disorders: (1) PTSD; (2) MDE; and (3) SA/D. (Kilpatrick, et al., 2003)

Methods

It is reported by Kilpatrick et al. (2003) that race and ethnicity were used in risk and protective-factor variables and stated specifically is "For risk-factor analyses, four dummy-coded variables refer to each of the following participant groups: African-American, non-Hispanic (n _590, 15.1%); Native American, non-Hispanic (n _ 139, 3.6%); Asian-American, non-Hispanic (n _ 46, 1.2%); and Hispanic (n _ 311, 8.0%). Caucasian, non-Hispanic participants (n _ 2820, 72.2%) served as the reference group." (Kilpatrick, et al., 2003)

III. Sexual Assault Defined

It is reported that sexual assault was defined as follows: "forced (a) vaginal or anal penetration by an object, finger, or penis; (b) oral sex; (c) touching of the respondent's breasts or genitalia; or (d) respondents' touching of another person's genitalia. Physical assault was defined as having been (a) attacked or threatened with a gun, knife, or some other weapon; (b) attacked by another person with perceived intent to kill or seriously injure; (c) beaten and injured (i.e., "hurt pretty badly") by another person; (d) spanked so forcefully that the respondent sustained welts or bruises, or required medical care; or (e) cut, burned, or tied up by a caregiver as a punitive consequence." (Kilpatrick, et al., 2003) Also included in the study was 'witnessed violence', which is largely self-explanatory Each adolescent was asked close-ended questions to ensure that the answers provided by the participants would not result in risk to the adolescent. The adolescents receiving a certification for having participated in the 'National Survey of Adolescents' and a check in the amount of $5.00.

IV. Prevalence and Comorbidity Reported

The study reports on the prevalence and comorbidity stating, "Overall, 15.5% of boys and 19.3% of girls had at least one of the three mental health problems. Roughly, twice the proportion of girls than boys met criteria for PTSD (6.3% vs. 3.7%) and MDE (13.9% vs. 7.4%). Girls and boys had relatively similar prevalence of SA/D (6.2% vs. 8.2%). For the full sample, nearly three fourths of the PTSD cases had at least one comorbid diagnosis, whereas fewer than two fifths of MDE and SA/D cases had a comorbid diagnosis. Comorbidity for each pair of diagnoses ranged from 1.1 -- 1.8% for boys and 1.5 -- 4.4% for girls. High comorbidity was found between PTSD and MDE, as 29% of MDE cases also met criteria for PTSD and 62% of PTSD cases also met MDE criteria. Comorbidity was lowest for boys with SA/D: Roughly 1 in 7 had comorbid PTSD, and 1 in 6 had comorbid MDE." (Kilpatrick et al. 2003)

V. Findings of the Study