Childhood sex abuse harms men as much as women

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A history of childhood sexual abuse appears to affect men as strongly as it does women, according to a new study.

In the past, studies on the long-term impact of sexual abuse have focused largely on females, leaving relatively little known about the lasting effects abuse may have on men.

In the new study, of more than 17,000 California adults, investigators found that men and women who said they’d been sexually abused as children were equally likely to show lasting psychological damage. 

Both sexes were twice as likely to have attempted suicide as men and women who reported no abuse. They were also more likely to have ever used drugs or abused alcohol.

In addition, men and women with a history of abuse more often said they had a troubled marriage or other family problems.

Shanta R. Dube, a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, led the study. The findings are published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Overall, Dube and her colleagues found, one-quarter of women and 16 percent of men said they had been sexually abused as children. Of these adults, about 12 percent of women and 4 percent of men reported a past suicide attempt-compared with 3 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, of those with no history of abuse.

Adults who reported abuse also had higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and were more likely to have married an alcoholic or to currently have marriage and family problems.

“The data,” the researchers write, “provide strong evidence that exposure to childhood sexual among both genders is common, and acts as a strong risk factor for multiple types of mental health, behavioral and social outcomes for adult men and women.”

The findings, according to Dube and her colleagues, point to the importance of identifying and treating the lasting effects of sexual abuse in both women and men.

The researchers also found that though it is commonly thought that women are far less likely than men to sexually abuse a child, nearly 40 percent of the men who reported abuse said a female was the perpetrator.

“Thus,” they write, “the vulnerability of boys to perpetration of childhood sexual abuse by both males and females deserves increased national attention.”

SOURCE: American Journal of Preventive Medicine, June 2005.

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