Objective. To report on rates of sexual abuse among a normative sample of adolescents and identify psychosocial correlates associated with sexual abuse. Method. An anonymous self-report survey examining an array of psychosocial items to which 3448 grade 8 and 10 students from rural and metropolitan school districts in a southern state responded. Results. There was a 105 rate of sexual abuse among this normative sample. Victims of forced sex were disproportionately female and African-American, and were more likely to reside in single-parent households. These sexually abused girls reported significantly higher levels of risky health behaviors and risky attitudes on 11 (P .001) of the 12 comparisons. Sexually abused boys showed a similar pattern on eight (P .001) comparisons. Conclusions. Indications are that forced sex experiences are associated strongly with risky health behaviors in some adolescents, which should alert clinicians to the possibility of sexual abuse.
Nagy et al. (Fri,) studied this question.