Citation

Briere J, Zaidi LY. Am. J. Psychiatry 1989; 146(12): 1602-1606.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles.

Comment In:

Am J Psychiatry 1990;147(10):1389-90.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, American Psychiatric Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2589554

Abstract

The charts of 100 nonpsychotic female patients in a psychiatric emergency room were reviewed to locate references to history of sexual molestation: 50 charts were selected at random from emergency room files, and 50 charts had been written by clinicians asked to query abuse history. A substantially higher rate of sexual abuse was found for patients who had been directly asked about sexual molestation (70%) than for the random sample (6%). Further analysis linked molestation history to suicidality, substance abuse, sexual difficulties, multiple psychiatric diagnoses, and axis II traits or disorders--especially borderline personality. Severe abuse and multiple abusers best predicted psychiatric sequelae.

Language: en