Sexual abuse histories and sequelae in female psychiatric emergency room patients

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.