The Effect of Maltreatment Co-occurrence on Emotional Harm among Sexually Abused Children

download file
Victims and Offenders, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 45– 62

Using data from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS), this study examined the extent to which emotional harm was observed for children who were victims of sexual abuse on its own or in combination with other forms of maltreatment. Emotional harm was noted in 40% of cases involving sexual abuse on its own, and in 51% of cases involving sexual abuse in combination with other forms of maltreatment. However, the authors found that when they controlled for other differences between the cases, such as child age, duration of abuse and parent risk factors, there was no statistically significant difference in the observed rate of emotional harm for victims of isolated sexual abuse compared to victims of sexual abuse cooccurring with other forms of maltreatment.

Additional information available for these authors
Canadian CW research
Journal article