TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2008//
TI  - Childhood sexual abuse and non-suicidal self-injury: Meta-analysis
JO  - British journal of psychiatry
A1  - Klonsky, E. David
A1  - Moyer, Anne
SP  - 166
EP  - 170
VL  - 192
IS  - 3
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0007-1250
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.106.030650
ID  - ref1
ER  -