Child Abuse, Sexual

Publication Title: 
Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine

Expert opinion in child abuse has received considerable bad press and currently public confidence in this area of medical practice is low. Media interest has focused most on the diagnosis of factitious illness. However doctors who examine children in respect of proceedings arising from suspected sexual abuse should be mindful this area is potentially just as problematic. Widely different rates of abnormal findings have been reported. At least in part this has reflected inconsistency in interpretation.

Author(s): 
Pillai, Mary
Publication Title: 
Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

A new retrospective interview assessment of childhood psychological abuse, an extension to the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse (CECA) instrument, is described in a companion article (Moran, Bifulco, Ball, Jacobs, & Benaim, 2002). The purpose of the present article is to examine the relationship of childhood psychological abuse to other adverse childhood experiences and to major depression and suicidal behavior in adult life. Childhood experience and lifetime disorder were assessed retrospectively in a high-risk, community series of London women (n = 204).

Author(s): 
Bifulco, Antonia
Moran, Patricia M.
Baines, Rebecca
Bunn, Amanda
Stanford, Katherine
Publication Title: 
Psychosomatic Medicine

OBJECTIVE: To examine epigenetic processes linking childhood sex abuse to symptoms of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in adulthood and to investigate the possibility that the link between childhood sex abuse and deoxyribonucleic acid methylation at the 5HTT promoter might represent a pathway of long-term impact on symptoms of ASPD. METHOD: Deoxyribonucleic acid was prepared from lymphoblast cell lines derived from 155 female participants in the latest wave of the Iowa Adoptee Study.

Author(s): 
Beach, Steven R. H.
Brody, Gene H.
Todorov, Alexandre A.
Gunter, Tracy D.
Philibert, Robert A.
Publication Title: 
Translational Psychiatry

Childhood maltreatment, through epigenetic modification of the glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1), influences the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). We investigated whether childhood maltreatment and its severity were associated with increased methylation of the exon 1(F) NR3C1 promoter, in 101 borderline personality disorder (BPD) and 99 major depressive disorder (MDD) subjects with, respectively, a high and low rate of childhood maltreatment, and 15 MDD subjects with comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Author(s): 
Perroud, N.
Paoloni-Giacobino, A.
Prada, P.
OliÈ, E.
Salzmann, A.
Nicastro, R.
Guillaume, S.
Mouthon, D.
Stouder, C.
Dieben, K.
Huguelet, P.
Courtet, P.
Malafosse, A.
Publication Title: 
Psychosomatic Medicine

OBJECTIVES: Comorbidity among eating disorders, traumatic events, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been reported in several studies. The main objectives of this study were to describe the nature of traumatic events experienced and to explore the relationship between PTSD and anorexia nervosa (AN) in a sample of women. METHODS: Eight hundred twenty-four participants from the National Institutes of Health-funded Genetics of Anorexia Nervosa Collaborative Study were assessed for eating disorders, PTSD, and personality characteristics.

Author(s): 
Reyes-RodrÌguez, Mae Lynn
Von Holle, Ann
Ulman, Teresa Frances
Thornton, Laura M.
Klump, Kelly L.
Brandt, Harry
Crawford, Steve
Fichter, Manfred M.
Halmi, Katherine A.
Huber, Thomas
Johnson, Craig
Jones, Ian
Kaplan, Allan S.
Mitchell, James E.
Strober, Michael
Treasure, Janet
Woodside, D. Blake
Berrettini, Wade H.
Kaye, Walter H.
Bulik, Cynthia M.
Publication Title: 
Psychoneuroendocrinology

This mini-review refers to recent findings on psychobiological long-term consequences of childhood trauma and adverse living conditions. The continuum of trauma-provoked aftermath reaches from healthy adaptation with high resilience, to severe maladjustment with co-occurring psychiatric and physical pathologies in children, adolescents and adults. There is increasing evidence of a strong interconnectivity between genetic dispositions, epigenetic processes, stress-related hormonal systems and immune parameters in all forms of (mal)-adjustment to adverse living conditions.

Author(s): 
Ehlert, Ulrike
Publication Title: 
Current Psychiatry Reports

Traumatic events are ubiquitous exposures that interact with life course events to increase risk of acute psychopathology and alter mental health trajectories. While the majority of persons exposed to trauma experience mild to moderate psychological distress followed by a return to pre-trauma health, many persons exposed to trauma experience substantial distress that lasts for several years.

Author(s): 
Fink, David S.
Galea, Sandro
Publication Title: 
Substance Abuse

The specific risk factors for addiction within religious community members remain poorly understood and undefined. This paper presents data on the characteristics of chemically dependent women Religious (nuns) in order to understand the etiology and treatment needs of this special group. This study contrasts a group of Roman Catholic women Religious who are in treatment for chemical dependency with a volunteer, nonalcoholic, comparison group from similar religious communities.

Author(s): 
McKechnie, Josie
Hill, Elizabeth M.
Publication Title: 
Journal of Traumatic Stress

In recent years, reports of institutional abuse within the Catholic Church have emerged and research on the consequences on mental health is in its beginnings. In this study, we report findings on current mental health and resilience in a sample of adult survivors of institutional abuse (N = 185). We compared 3 groups of survivors that differed regarding their current mental health to investigate aspects of resilience, coping, and disclosure. The majority of the sample was male (76.2%), the mean age was 56.28 (SD = 9.46) years, and more than 50.0% of the sample was cohabiting/married.

Author(s): 
Lueger-Schuster, Brigitte
Weindl, Dina
Kantor, Viktoria
Knefel, Matthias
Gl¸ck, Tobias
Moy, Yvonne
Butollo, Asisa
Jagsch, Reinhold
Publication Title: 
Adolescence

In this study, the Dean Romanticism Scale and the Bachman Self-esteem Scale were administered to 121 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 19 in Southern California to investigate their degree of romanticism and self-esteem.

Author(s): 
Medora, N. P.
Goldstein, A.
von der Hellen, C.

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