Childhood sexual abuse and abuse-specific attributions of blame over 6 years following discovery.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of change in attributions for childhood sexual abuse (CSA) over a 6-year period and whether such patterns were related to abuse severity, age, gender, and subsequent symptoms of depression and PTSD.

METHODOLOGY: One-hundred and sixty children, 8-15 years old, were interviewed within 8 weeks of the time the CSA was reported to child protective services (i.e., the time of abuse discovery). Follow-up interviews were conducted 1-year later on 147, and 6 years later on 121 of the original participants. Abuse-specific attributions were obtained using two methods. Participants first responded to an open-ended interview question about why they believed the CSA had happened to them and then completed a rating scale about the extent to which possible attributions for the CSA applied to them (e.g., "Because I was not smart enough").

RESULTS

Over time, perpetrator-blame attributions were consistently more common than self-blame attributions for CSA (using both interview and rating measures). Youth were more likely to report self-blame attributions on the rating measure than the open-ended interview question. The interview method indicated that youth often felt confused about why the abuse happened up to a year following discovery but this response diminished by the third assessment. On average, ratings of perpetrator-blame attribution remained high over time (p<.05), whereas ratings of self-blame decreased (p<.01). Penetration was related to more self-blame (p<.05) and less perpetrator-blame (p<.05), and the use of force was related to more perpetrator-blame. The initial level of self-blame attribution ratings predicted subsequent symptoms of depression (p<.05) and intrusive experiences (p<.05) after controlling for age at abuse discovery, gender, and self-blame attributions for common events. Perpetrator-blame attributions were not related to symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study suggest that assessing responses to open-ended interview questions about the perceived reasons for the abuse and ratings of attributions are important for understanding how youth make sense of their abuse. Abuse-specific self-blame attributions at abuse discovery have a persistent effect on internalizing symptoms and should be assessed and the target of treatment as soon as possible after CSA has been reported to the authorities.