Psychological impact and coping responses of non-offending caregivers following child sexual abuse disclosure: A qualitative systematic review.

BACKGROUND

Parental and caregiver responses play a critical role in shaping the recovery and well-being of children following the disclosure of child sexual abuse. These responses are underexplored in existing literature.

METHODS

A comprehensive search of six databases was conducted for qualitative studies on parental or caregiver responses to CSA disclosure or discovery, published between January 2000 and December 2024. Thematic synthesis was used to identify core patterns, and all studies were appraised using the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist.

RESULTS

Eight studies met the inclusion criteria, capturing caregiver experiences across diverse cultural contexts. Nine themes emerged including emotional collapse and self-blame, stigma and social silence, cultural and religious barriers, protective parenting, coping, help seeking, recognition of abuse, trauma echoes, and family resilience, which informed the Integrated Behavioral Model of Non-Offending Caregiver Response (IBM NOC).

CONCLUSIONS

Non offending caregivers of children who experience CSA, may experience complex trauma responses that affect disclosure, recovery, and help seeking. The IBM-NOC is a preliminary conceptual, non-pathologizing framework that may help practitioners to identify, contextualize, and support these caregiver experiences, and to generate hypotheses for future research.