Higher levels of sexual abuse in childhood than previously reported have been found in a new study carried out by doctors from St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin.
A total of 31 per cent of the total number of women interviewed in the study reported some form of sexual abuse when they were children. This is much higher than previous figures quoted for Ireland.
The study showed that severe sexual abuse in childhood can lead to depression in adult women, who are also more likely to be separated or divorced and have problems with sex, housing and their children at school.
The study screened 1,189 women who were attending their GPs for a variety of reasons, including health problems relating to their children, routine followups etc. They were recruited from three general practices; in a middle-class suburb of Dublin, an underprivileged area of Dublin and a small town in the Midlands.
Of these women, 237 were interviewed, and of these 132 were depressed. Results show that 37 per cent of the depressed interviewees and 23 per cent of the non-depressed women interviewed reported sexual abuse when they were under 16.
This meant that 73 or 31 per cent reported that they had been sexually abused as a child. The study was carried out by Dr Marese Cheasty with Prof Anthony Clare, the medical director of St Patrick's Hospital, and Ms Claire Collins, a data analyst.
Prof Clare said the prevalence of child sexual abuse in the non-depressed women was much higher than previous figures quoted for Ireland. (The most recent figures were from an Irish Marketing Survey in 1993 which reported rates of 15 per cent in women and 9 per cent in men.)
They concluded that a positive association between child sexual abuse and depression was confirmed, but this was entirely due to a relation between the more severe abuse, penetration or attempted penetration, and depression. No association was present when these more severe types of abuse were excluded from the analysis.
No difference was found in social class between the abused and non-abused groups. Nor was there any difference between the social class of the women who had experienced severe sexual abuse in childhood and the rest of the population.
Those who had experienced severe sexual abuse were significantly more likely to be separated or divorced than the rest of the population.
A significantly larger proportion of women who had experienced sexual abuse also reported housing difficulties and problems with their children at school than did the non-abused women. They also reported significantly more sexual problems. The significance of these associations remained even when depression was controlled.
The women who were interviewed ranged in age from 18 to 87. Sixty-seven per cent were married; 80 per cent had one or more children; 50 per cent were housewives; and 27 per cent were in full-time employment.
Of the women in both the depressed and non-depressed groups who reported sexual abuse in childhood, 11 per cent had been subjected to penetration and a further 19 per cent had suffered attempted penetration; 63 per cent had been abused on more than one occasion; 47 per cent thought their experience of abuse in childhood had had a permanent damaging effect on them; and a further 18 per cent thought it affected them for a long time.