Citation

Cohen JA, Mannarino AP. Child Abuse Negl. 1988; 12(4): 571-577.

Affiliation

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1988, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

3233522

Abstract

This study examined psychological symptoms exhibited by children who had recently been sexually abused. Twenty-four girls aged 6 to 12 years old were evaluated within six months of being abused using a variety of standardized child psychiatric instruments. Results showed a marked discrepancy between child and parent reports of symptoms. The abused children did not exhibit significant depressive, anxiety, or low self-esteem symptoms by self-report; however, their parents rated them as having significantly more behavioral problems than a normative sample but as somewhat less pathological than a clinical sample. The implications of these findings in relation to our current understanding of the psychological problems manifested by sexually abused children and for future research are discussed.

Language: en