Impact of expert testimony on the believability of repressed memories.

Research suggests that people question the believability of trial testimony based on an alleged victim's previously repressed memories. Participants read one of six scenarios depicting the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting a young girl. The alleged victim either reported the assault immediately (child witness) or waited 20 years to report it (adult witness). In the adult witness condition, the woman's memory for the event had either been repressed until recently or had always been available, and expert testimony was offered on behalf of the defense, the prosecution, both, or neither. Regression analyses revealed that women perceived the accuser's testimony as more believable and the defendant's testimony as less believable than men did. Similarly, the belief in the accuser's testimony decreased and the belief in the defendant's testimony increased when the accuser was an adult in contrast to a child, and when the defense offered expert testimony in contrast to its absence. In addition, guilty verdicts were associated with higher levels of accuser believability, lower levels of defendant believability and testimony based on repressed memories in contrast to testimony based on memories that were never repressed.

Is youth victimization related to trauma symptoms and depression after controlling for prior symptoms and family relationships? A longitudinal, prospective study.

The common finding linking symptoms such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression with youth victimization (e.g., sexual abuse) might well be artifactual if preexisting psychopathology or disturbed family relationships create a common risk for both later victimization and later symptoms. This study used a longitudinal, prospective design to examine this issue. In a national random sample telephone survey, children 10 to 16 years old were interviewed and then reinterviewed approximately 15 months later about psychological problems, family relationships and victimization experiences that had occurred in the interim. Victimization in the interim was associated with PTSD-related symptoms and depression measured at Time 2, even after controlling for these symptoms and the quality of the parent-child relationship at Time 1. The association was particularly strong for sexual abuse, parental assault, and kidnapping experiences. However, these data also suggest that some of the apparent association found in cross-sectional studies between victimization and psychopathology may be due to prior psychopathology (but not parent-child relationship problems), which puts children at risk for both victimization and later symptoms.

Prior victimization: a risk factor for child sexual abuse and for PTSD-related symptomatology among sexually abused youth.

The experience of prior victimization (sexual and nonsexual) was found to increase children's risk for experiencing later child sexual abuse (CSA) in a national random sample of 2,000 American children aged 10-16 years. Prior victimization predicted subsequent CSA even when background variables (child's gender, race, age, geographic location, quality of relationship with parents, and relative level of violence in the home community) were controlled for. In addition, the prior victimization of a family member also predicted later CSA. Among children who experienced CSA, prior victimization increased the level of post-traumatic stress symptomatology, even after demographic factors and characteristics of the CSA episode (e.g., severity of the assault, severity of injury, fear of death or serious injury) were included in the model. These results suggest that prior victimization is a factor that needs to be addressed by educators who design CSA prevention interventions and by mental health professionals who counsel child victims of sexual abuse.

Psychosocial sequelae of violent victimization in a national youth sample.

In a national telephone sample of youths aged 10-16 years, over one third reported having been the victims of an assault. Victimized respondents displayed significantly more psychological and behavioral symptomatology than did nonvictimized respondents (more symptomatology related to posttraumatic stress disorder, more sadness, and more school difficulties), even after controlling for some other possible sources of distress. Sexual assault was associated with particularly high levels of symptomatology. However, victims of other forms of assault--nonfamily assaults involving weapons or physical injury (aggravated assaults), assaults by parents, violence to genitals, and attempted kidnappings--also evidenced levels of distress that were not statistically lower than those suffered by victims of sexual assault. The findings suggest that substantial mental health morbidity in the general child and adolescent population is associated with victimization.