Sex with children is abuse: Comment on Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998).

B. Rind, P. Tromovitch, and R. Bauserman (1998) reported a meta-analysis of the relation between sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence and psychological functioning among college students. Several aspects of their work have proven to be highly controversial, including their assertion that the relation between child sexual abuse and adjustment is quite small and their questioning of whether child sexual abuse should be labeled abuse in scientific inquiry. In this commentary, the authors summarize the controversy that has ensued, place it in a historical context, discuss the limitations of B. Rind et al.'s findings, and critique the manner in which those findings are presented. The authors also argue for the appropriateness of the term abuse and for scientific terminology that reflects rather than contradicts consensual public morality.

Child protective services' response to prenatal drug exposure: results from a nationwide survey.

OBJECTIVE: This survey was conducted to: (1) document child protective services (CPS) agencies' actual practices regarding prenatal drug exposure; (2) examine urban and rural differences in CPS responses; (3) explore whether CPS practices varied as a function of county median income, birth rate, population size, or percent minority births; and (4) assess respondent satisfaction with their county's current responses. METHOD: Data were collected via a nationwide telephone survey of child welfare supervisors from two urban and two rural counties in every state (N = 200). RESULTS: Ninety percent of counties (100% of urban and 80% of rural) reported receiving referrals of infants with prenatal drug exposure. Among those receiving referrals, extreme variations in practice were found; all possible response options (from very inactive to very aggressive) were equally represented on key questions (e.g., filing court petitions, taking custody). Rural counties tended to have stronger responses than urban counties (t[175] = -2.26, p = .024). County response did not vary with county-level median family income, percent minority births, or birth rate. Despite wide variations in practice, the majority of respondents (69%) felt their county's response was appropriate. Of respondents who did indicate that their county's response was inappropriate, most (85%) felt that the county needed to do more to protect children. CONCLUSIONS: There is currently tremendous variation across US counties in CPS responses to, and beliefs regarding, the issue of prenatal drug exposure. Some of this variation is due to differences between urban and rural counties, with little variation explained by differences in median income or percent minority births at the county level. There is a need for research-based guidance and consensus building in CPS practice in this area.

Prenatal drug exposure and social policy: the search for an appropriate response.

Prenatal drug exposure continues to be a controversial topic. Views of what constitutes an appropriate response to drug-exposed infants vary, in large part due to the many complex issues endemic to perinatal substance use. The purpose of this article is to review the controversy surrounding prenatal drug exposure, outline the policy dilemmas that complicate attempts to respond appropriately, review current practice in this area and the effectiveness of those practices, and offer specific recommendations as a starting point for debate. It is suggested that earlier controversy regarding the sequelae of prenatal drug exposure may be decreasing as research identifies specific and subtle deficits in some affected infants. It is also suggested that the postnatal effects of parental substance abuse (e.g., in terms of abuse/neglect, attachment, and development) are the more appropriate focus of child protection efforts, and that different disciplines must collaborate to reach a consensus regarding the nature of these efforts.

Adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease: the roles of negative affectivity and hostility in subjective versus objective health.

Examination of how psychological factors relate to illness severity among adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is rare. Further, studies have not accounted for the pervasive influence of negative affectivity (NA) or distinguished among subjective, behavioral, and objective measures of IBD severity. We examined how NA, positive affectivity, expressed hostility, and negative life events were related to subjective (pain, fatigue, disability), behavioral (health care contacts), and objective (erythrocyte sedimentation rate) illness severity among 56 adolescents with IBD. NA was positively related to subjective illness, and expressed hostility was inversely related to objective illness. Other relationships were eliminated after controlling for NA. Data suggest that NA and subjective illness are comanifestations of a single disposition, but that expressed hostility has an independent relationship with disease activity among adolescents with IBD.