Psychiatric state of college students with a history of childhood sexual abuse.

BACKGROUND: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) seriously influences children's psychological status. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between CSA and the psychiatric disorders. METHODS: An anonymous and retrospective questionnaire survey was carried out in 1307 college students (aged 18-25 years; 701 females, 606 males) to investigate the participants' CSA experience by means of a complete random sampling method. The Symptom Check-List-90 (SCL-90) test was used to study the victims' psychiatric aspects. RESULTS: 22.11% (155/701) of the female students and 14.69% (89/606) of the male students experienced physical and/or non-physical contact CSA before age 18, with a significant difference between female and male (P<0.05). And 11.43% (80/701) of the female students and 7.26% (44/606) of the male students experienced physical contact CSA (P<0.05). Most abusers were male and young people, and only a few of them used violence. 78.7% of the females experienced non-physical contact CSA from strangers, while 71.3% experienced physical contact CSA from acquaintances. 89.9% of the male victims knew the abusers before. Females were more likely than males to experience physical contact CSA from members of the family circles. The CSA incidence increased with age in females, while 54.7% of the male victims experienced CSA from 12 to 16 years. The students who experienced CSA had higher SCL-90 scores than those who did not in somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. The more serious the CSA experience was, the higher SCL-90 scores of the psychiatric disorders would be. CONCLUSIONS: CSA is not uncommon in adolescents. Girls are more likely to experience CSA than boys. About half of the abusers are the victims' close relatives, neighbors and teachers; most abusers were male. Personal experience of CSA may seriously affect the victims' psychological health.

[Childhood sexual abuses among 1307 adult students and analysis on results of Symptom Checklist-90 test].

OBJECTIVE: To survey the occurrence of childhood sexual abuses (CSA) among adult students and analyze the correlation between the sexual abuses and the results of Symptom Check-List-90 (SCL-90) test. METHODS: Questionnaire survey of 1307 adult students (701 female students, 606 male students) in a college about their personal experience on childhood sexual abuses. The surveys were conducted anonymously. And SCL-90 test was carried out at the same time. RESULTS: A total of 1307 students were surveyed. 18.67% of them (female students, 155, 22.11%; male students, 89, 14.69%) experienced non-physical contact sexual abuses and/or physical contact sexual abuses before the age of 18 years, among whom 124 students (female students, 81, 11.55%; male students, 44, 7.26%) experienced physical contact sexual abuses, including 35 (26 female; 9 male) who suffered attempted genital or anal sexual intercourse and 11 (8 female and 3 male) were forced for genital or anal sexual intercourse; 13.70% (female 15.66%; male 11.44%) said they experienced sexual abuses before the age of 16 years. Of the boys, experienced sexual abuse 54.7% from age 12 to age 16 years. And among the girls sexual abuses tended to increase with their growth (results of tendency test: chi(2) = 33.5, P < 0.001). The abusers were mostly males; only a small percentage of them used violence; for most female students who experienced non-physical contact sexual abuses, the abusers were strangers (78.7%), while 71.3% of physical contact abuses were from acquaintances, 12.5% of them were teachers, 17.5% were neighbors and 21.3% were relatives. Of the male victims, 89.9% said they knew the abusers before the abuses happened, 14.6% (13 out of 89) of them were teachers, and neighbors constituted another 21.3% (19 out of 89). Students who experienced childhood sexual abuses got higher scores than the students who didn't have such experience in the nine basic symptom factors of SCL-90 and higher than normal model of national young group notably. CONCLUSION: Childhood sexual abuse among students is not rare. The female students' incidence was obviously higher than that among the male students (chi(2) = 11.8, P = 0.001). About half of the abusers were the victims' close relatives, neighbors and teachers who live or study together with them. Personal experience of childhood sexual abuses may be one of the important factors influencing the victims' results of SCL-90 test.