Sexual harassment and patterns of symptoms and functional abilities in a psychiatric sample of adolescents

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate how commonly adolescent psychiatric outpatients with symptoms of depression and anxiety report having been subjected to sexual harassment, and to explore how symptoms and functional abilities differ between adolescent psychiatric outpatients with symptoms of depression and anxiety who do report and those who do not report having been subjected to sexual harassment.

Methods

Swedish adolescent psychiatric outpatients with symptoms of depression or anxiety (n = 324; 66 boys and 258 girls, aged 12–19 years, M = 15.6, SD = 1.7) answered the PROMIS paediatric measures. Logistic regression analyses were performed to assess differences between the respondents classified as ‘Sexually harassed’ and ‘Not sexually harassed’ based on these self-report questionnaires.

Results

About 60% of the adolescents reported having been subjected to sexual harassment, and reported higher levels of suicidal ideation, disturbed sleep, fatigue, anxiety, depression, anger, and pain interference, as well as lower functional ability in terms of school problems, alcohol consumption, and poor family relationships. Logistic regression analyses showed that the strongest associations were with suicidal ideation, disturbed sleep, anger, and alcohol consumption.

Conclusions

About 60% of the adolescents in the studied psychiatric cohort reported having been subjected to sexual harassment. Reported experiences were high in all three subtypes, with the most reports on having been subjected to verbal harassment. Clinicians should ask about experiences of sexual harassment and give information about the consequences of sexual violence and treatment options. Alcohol consumption should be addressed and tested for. Structured assessment of suicidality should always be done.

Keywords:

• Sexual harassment
• child and adolescent psychiatry
• logistic regression
• suicidal ideation
• adolescents

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of the adolescents who participated in this project.

Disclosure statement

We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.

Data availability statement

Data are available on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Child and Adolescent Clinic, Oscar Fund, and Region Västerbotten in Sweden.