Disorder Childhood sexual abuse can lead to severe psychological impairment, substance use problems, anxiety, posttraumatic stress (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and even suicide. For women who have survived childhood sexual abuse, the type of abuse, specifically, intercourse or molestation, the role of perpetrator, and the age at which the abuse occurred could be significant factors that help predict the likelihood of future suicide attempts. To further examine these individual elements in relation to suicide attempts in women, Banu Cankaya, Assistant Professor at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey, reviewed data from 106 women with MDD who had been sexually abused during childhood.
The method was used in this article point out that women with MDD and sexual abuse histories (n = 106) were assessed regarding sexual abuse characteristics, psychiatric diagnoses, and suicide attempts. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Rocherster Medical Center prior to implementing the study, and was reviewed and re-approved annually. Only pretreatment baseline data are reported. The study shows us the independent variables were 4 childhood sexual abuse characteristics: intercourse, a parent figure perpetrator, physical force, and onset before the age of 6 years. The 2 dichotomous dependent variables were lifetime history of: suicide attempt (no attempt, compared with 1 or more attempts) and multiple suicide attempts (1attempt, compared with more than 1 attempt). And it emphasized the very important result is “In multivariate logistic regressions, the odds of having multiple suicide attempts increased 12.27-fold when childhood sexual abuse was perpetrated by a parent figure or a parent, compared with a nonparent”. Sixty-eight women (64.2%) had a diagnosis of PTSD and 36 (34.0%) had a diagnosis of BPD. Fifty-nine women