CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE AND YOUTH SUICIDE: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Abstract
Studies of suicide and non-fatal suicide-related behaviours demonstrate a gender paradox: Suicide rates are typically higher in males than females, whereas the opposite is true for non-fatal suicide-related behaviours. However, the reasons for these differences are unclear. Among the potential explanations, particularly in youth, is the effect of child maltreatment. A previous review suggested that while child sexual abuse may be more common in girls, the negative effect may be more potent for boys (with respect to suicide attempts). However, as their risk/protective factors may not always overlap, it is unclear whether this pattern seen for suicide attempts extends to suicide. The current study reviewed the evidence for potential sex differences in the association between child sexual abuse and suicide, identified methodological challenges to such studies, and discussed implications for future theoretical formulations/testing in research. The findings confirmed that the association between child sexual abuse and youth suicide remains unclear and the potential sex differences in the association remain largely unaddressed. Further, a test of the association between child sexual abuse and suicide would be best pursued in very large, population-based studies (with standardized measures of child sexual abuse) later linked to mortality data.
Downloads
Metrics
Authors contributing to the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Rights Granted After Publication
After publication, authors may reuse portions or the full article without obtaining formal permission for inclusion within their thesis or dissertation.
Permission for these reuses is granted on the following conditions:
- that full acknowledgement is made of the original publication stating the specific material reused [pages, figure numbers, etc.], [Title] by/edited by [Author/editor], [year of publication], reproduced by permission of International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies [link to IJCYFS website];
- In the case of joint-authored works, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission from co-authors for the work to be reuse/republished;
- that reuse on personal websites and institutional or subject-based repositories includes a link to the work as published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies; and that the material is not distributed under any kind of Open Access style licences (e.g. Creative Commons) which may affect the Licence between the author and IJCYFS.
