@article{ref1,
title="Childhood sexual abuse and non-suicidal self-injury: Meta-analysis",
journal="British journal of psychiatry",
year="2008",
author="Klonsky, E. David and Moyer, Anne",
volume="192",
number="3",
pages="166-170",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Many theorists posit that childhood sexual abuse has a central role in the aetiology of self-injurious behaviour. Studies that report statistically significant associations between a history of such abuse and self-injury are cited to support this view. AIMS: A meta-analysis was conducted to determine systematically the magnitude of the association between childhood sexual abuse and self-injurious behaviour. METHOD: Forty-five analyses of the association were identified. Effect sizes were converted to a standard metric and aggregated. RESULTS: The relationship between childhood sexual abuse and self-injurious behaviour is relatively small (mean weighted aggregate varphi=0.23). This figure may be inflated owing to publication bias. In studies that statistically controlled for psychiatric risk factors, childhood sexual abuse explained little or no unique variance in self-injurious behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: Theories that childhood sexual abuse has a central or causal role in the development of self-injurious behaviour are not supported by the available empirical evidence. Instead, it appears that the two are modestly related because they are correlated with the same psychiatric risk factors.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0007-1250",
doi="10.1192/bjp.bp.106.030650",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.106.030650"
}