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ABSTRACT
The present study aimed to assess the prevalence and characteristics of child sexual abuse (CSA) in a large-scale sample of Slovak late adolescents. Randomized cluster sampling was used to sample 2186 students in their final school year of secondary school with mean age of 18.6 years (SD = .7 years). The study employed the Child Sexual Abuse Questionnaire consisting of multiple behavior-specific questions. The prevalence of CSA was analyzed separately for three clusters of CSA and gender. The prevalence of non-contact forms of CSA was 40.6% among girls and 17.7% among boys. CSA with physical contact without penetration was reported by 30.2% girls and 11.6% boys. The prevalence of CSA with penetration was 5.6% among girls and 1.3% among boys. More than half of CSA occurred between 16 and 18 years of age. The severity of abuse was positively associated with acquaintance to the perpetrator. Roughly 43–56% disclosed the abuse to another person. The majority of disclosed CSA was revealed to peers and partners. A negligible proportion of CSA instances were reported to the police. Prevention activities should consider a broad spectrum of CSA in order to counteract tendencies to associate CSA only with unwanted sexual intercourse.
Acknowledgments
The authors are also grateful to the research assistants who administered the questionnaire, namely: Tomáš Horvát, Beáta Vasková, Erika Tarasovičová, Viktória Peštová, Simona Kravcová, Marianna Ficeková, Michal Lörinc, Róbert Toth, Ingrid Senková, Jana Bernátová, Paulína Klimková, and Petra Vavreková.
Disclosure of Interest
The authors do not have any interests that might be interpreted as influencing the results reported in this study.
Ethical standards and informed consent
All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation, namely the Department of Education of the concerned Self-governing Region Authorities and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Slavka Karkoskova
Slavka Karkoskova, PhD., is an associate professor at St. Elisabeth University of Health Care and Social Work, Bratislava, Slovakia, a researcher at Judicial Academy of the Slovak Republic, and founder and director of the non-governmental organization ASCEND, specifically focused on child sexual abuse.
Ivan Ropovik
Ivan Ropovik, PhD., is a researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Presov, Slovakia.