Citation

Miller PM, Lisak D. J. Interpers. Violence 1999; 14(6): 642-656.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/088626099014006005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between childhood abuse and personality disorder symptoms in a nonclinical sample of college males (N = 584, mean age = 28.8 years). Childhood sexual and physical abuse and personality disorder (PD) symptoms, among other variables, were assessed using self-report measures. Abuse histories were categorized into no abuse, sexual abuse only, physical abuse only, and both types of abuse. Also, a dimension of severity was measured by tallying, for sexual and physical abuse scales separately, the number of items meeting abuse criteria. Multivariate analyses indicate that even when statistically controlling for possible confounding variables, childhood abuse histories are associated with greater levels of adult symptomatology. The severity dimension predicted statistically significant, although clinically negligible, portions of the variance for three PD scales.

Language: en