Psychological symptoms of adolescent survivors of sexual abuse and characteristics of survivors displaying suicidal and/or self-harming behaviors

Abstract

We examine the psychological symptoms and suicide attempts and/or self-injury behaviors of survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) according to individual and familial characteristics. The participants of this study included 80 adolescents aged 14-17 years. We show that high psychological symptom scores may indicate that the perpetrator was a family member and that penetration occurred. In addition, most of the participating survivors have experienced numerous problems, largely related to psychological symptoms. Considering the results regarding survivors who had previously attempted suicide, we demonstrate that the perpetrators in these cases were mostly reliable/loved people, while these survivors generally hid the events and were exposed to penetration more often. We conclude that survivors exposed to CSA by a reliable/loved person, blaming themselves, having low social support, and displaying certain symptoms should be followed closely and necessary psychosocial interventions for suicide should be applied.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Disclosure

The author/s declare that there is no conflict of interest to report.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of responsible communities on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from the survivors and their parents.

Funding

This manuscript involved no financial support.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.