The description of the characteristics of the individual, family, abuse and assessment of the effects of these characteristics both on the possibility of being abused and on the occurence of a psychiatric disorder among adolescent cases that were sexually abused: a controlled study

In this study, children and adolescents of ages 11-18 that were sexually abused andwere admitted to the clinic within a year, with the complaint of sexual misuse, were assessed to determine the description of the characteristics of individual, family and abuse; to compare whether the features of the individual, family and abuse have an effect on the formation of a psychiatric disorder or not. In conjuction with this, another objective of this study was to establish whether the coping mechanisms and the family functioning as well as the difference in parental attitudes have an effect on being a case or not. The study sample contains 31 cases; 24 girls and 7 boys, and a control group that contains 61 healthy adolescents of which 47 are girls and 14 are boys. The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia For School Aged Children were applied to bothgroups to undergo a diagnostic screening. Ways of Coping Checklist ( SBYO)- Adolescent Form, Ways of Coping Inventory (SBO), Family Functioning Inventory (ADO) and Parent Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) were applied to all of the children, adolescents and their mothers in the study. As a result of the assessments, the factors that determined being sexually abused (to represent a case) were found to be not attending school, having multiple siblings, which child the case was within the family, the occurence of a physical illness, low IQ, low education levels of the mother, paternal alcohol use, marital disturbances, the positive story for familial physical and sexual abuse, more positive symptoms and psychopathology in the group who were subject to sexual abuse. The most frequently encountered diagnoses were anxiety disorders and depressive disorders in the study sample. The only sociodemographic variable that was determined to have an effect on the diagnosis within the children case group was socioeconomic status. No effect of parental attitudes was detected on the development of psychopathology and as for family functioning, considering the interaction and attentive caring subscales in the case group, the mean of subtest scores were significantly low statitistically. As for the coping strategies, the case group was found to be using the coping mechanisms focused on problem solving less and that this type of a coping strategy may indeed increase the risk of being a case itself. It is also suggested that, through the studies assigning the predictors affecting the diagnosis, one may reach results that may predict mental health.Key words: Sexual abuse, risk factors, coping, psychopathology, predictor