Peer Sexual Abuse Dangerous for Teens

Suicide attempts, eating disorders increase

MONDAY, Aug. 27, 2001 (HealthDayNews) -- Headlines to the contrary, it's not just adults who are sexually victimizing teens. They're also doing it to themselves, says a Minnesota psychologist whose study of more than 80,000 state high school students found that 9 percent of the girls and 6 percent of the boys reported date rape and/or violence on a date.

Further, the study found that traumatic dating experiences were linked to a sharp increase in self-destructive behaviors like suicide attempts and eating disorders.

"People always think about strangers and other adults when they think of sexual abuse of young people and tend to forget about date-related experiences," says Diann Ackard, a psychologist affiliated with the University of Minnesota. "This is another form of violence that we need to be on the alert for."

The study, which was presented yesterday at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco, involved data from the 1998 Minnesota Student Survey, an annual survey of 9th and 12th grade students in public high schools across the state. It found that about 3,500 girls and 2,400 boys said that they had experienced date rape, violence on a date or both at least once.

More than one-third of the abused teens said they experienced both rape and other violence on dates, and of those, half had tried suicide. Among that group, the incidence of eating disorders, like overusing laxatives or diet pills, binge-eating or vomiting, was two-to-30 times higher than teens who weren't sexually abused by their peers.

"These are significant risk factors. It is really critical that we understand the prevalence [of peer abuse] and the association with detrimental consequences," Ackard says.

Claire S. Consentino, a Columbia University psychologist who works with sexually abused adolescents, says it's difficult to blame the teens' self-destructive behavior solely on peer sexual abuse because there are many other possible reasons, including abuse by older family members or other adults. The study did not address adult-child sexual abuse.

However, Consentino says, "Doctors should be looking at and considering the effects of date rape in young adults as part of their treatment."

Ackard says older girls were especially prone to predatory sexual practices, with 11.5 percent of the high school seniors reporting date violence and/or rape, compared with 6.7 percent of 9th grade girls. Both the 9th and 12th grade boys reported sexual abuse at a rate of 6 percent.

Ackard says the older girls probably are dating more, making them more susceptible to violence. She says she can't explain the abuse of the boys.

"We can't say from the data. It's possible that date violence [against boys] includes girls punching guys, but whether [the abuse] is same sex or opposite sex, we don't know."

Ackard says the study was limited because the questions about what constituted date rape and date violence were open-ended.

"The phrasing of the questions leaves a lot of room for the individual to interpret, which allows freedom but is not too specific," she says. She says she would like to do another study to further define the abuse.

In the meantime, she says she hopes health professionals will ask about peer abuse when talking to troubled teens.

"I would encourage all medical and mental health specialists to add to their assessments questions pertaining to date-related violence," she says.

What To Do

Information about date rape and advice on how to prevent it can be found at the Association of American Colleges. For more information about child abuse, visit the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

And here are resources to help you find out more about date rape.

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