THURSDAY, Aug. 9, 2001 (HealthDayNews) -- Adding a new dimension to the lifelong effects of violence against children, a British study finds that women who experience any abuse in childhood are likely to suffer the same kind of abuse in their adult lives.
While previous research focused mainly on whether childhood sexual abuse increases the risk of sexual abuse in adulthood, a new survey of more than 1,200 women shows that any sort of early abuse leads to an increased risk of victimization in adulthood. The finding by a team led by Dr. Jeremy Coid, a forensic psychiatrist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, appears in the Aug. 11 issue of The Lancet.
Women subjected to unwanted sexual intercourse in their young lives, for example, were three times more likely to be the victims of rape or domestic violence as adults, and women who suffered severe beatings during childhood reported a high incidence of domestic violence, rape and other trauma, the researchers say.
The information was gathered from questionnaires filled out by women living in an inner-city slum area of London when they visited their doctors. Nearly a third of the women reported some kind of childhood abuse: 88 had been raped; 116 had unwanted sexual activity that stopped short of rape; 160 had been severely beaten, most of them several times, and 17 reported beatings, unwanted sexual activity and rape.
Women who were raped in childhood were at least three times more likely to be raped as adults, the researchers say. And they were nearly three times more likely to experience another kind of sexual assault, four times more likely to experience domestic violence and more than twice as likely to suffer other kinds of trauma. Childhood beatings were associated with a greater likelihood of domestic violence and rape, sexual assault and other traumas in adult life.
Coid says the findings almost certainly apply to women in the United States, but the reason for the link is unclear. "The bottom line is that we don't know," he says.
He offers three possible explanations, saying "there is no sufficient evidence to confirm any of them."
It's possible that because of their early experiences, the women "may be more likely to drift down the social scale or not progress up, thereby remaining in a geographical area where the risks are higher," Coid says. It's also possible that some women are more prone to high-risk behavior, putting themselves in dangerous situations all their lives, but that can be described as blaming the victim, he says.
The basic problem is "an extraordinary paucity of research" about child abuse, says Dr. Richard D. Krugman, professor of pediatrics and dean of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who chaired the U. S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect from 1989 to 1993.
That board's report described child abuse as a national emergency and recommended a substantial increase in federal support in the field, a recommendation that has been ignored, Krugman says.
Both the public and the medical profession shrink from the subject, he says. "This is an area that people don't want to talk about and that is not taught in professional schools."
A new report by a National Academy of Sciences committee named by Congress about medical training in the area of family violence is expected this autumn, Krugman says. But he says, "One of the things we shouldn't do any more is to put together more government commissions. We need to act on what we know."
Despite his generally bleak view, Krugman sees some signs of progress. "The data suggests that the number of cases of abuse may be dropping over the past few years. We certainly don't see the kind of battered children described in 1951, when the battered-child syndrome was first identified," he says.
What To Do
The subtle conspiracy of silence should be ended, Krugman says. "Women don't tell their physicians, children don't tell anyone, so it is up to medical professionals to recognize the symptoms and ask the right questions so we can develop appropriate interventions."
Information on the problem is available from the National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a policy saying that pediatricians ought to intervene on behalf of abused mothers because it's likely that their children are abused as well.
