Psychological Reportx, 1990, 66, 401-402.
@ Psychological Reports 1990
DEVELOPMENT O F A MEASURE OF UNWANTED SEXUAL CONTACT IN CHILDHOOD, FOR USE IN COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SURVEYS CHRISTOPHER BAGLEY University of Calgary ' Summary.-Development of a measure of child sexual abuse, operationalized as unwanted sexual contact before age 17, is described. In a community mental health survey of 750 women aged 18 to 27 yr., 32% recalled unwanted sexual contact. 7 % experienced prolonged sexual assault before age 17 and had significantly higher scores as adults on the CESD Depression scale. There is now clear evidence that child sexual abuse is much more frequent than previously assumed (7). Estimates of rates, from recall of childhood in nondinical, adult populations have varied however from 4% to over 30% in women (2). Reasons for these variations include demogaphic profiles of populations accessed, number, type and order of questions, definitions of abuse and of "child" (8). Studies of adults' recall also underestimate prevalence given the reluctance of some individuals to disclose prior sexual assault, failure of conventional sampling to access the most traumatized populations, and the possibility of "dissociation" of current cognition and affect from earlier trauma (5). These factors imply that recall studies will give conservative estimates of both the prevalence and the severity of long-term sequels of child sexual abuse. FinkeLhor (6) pioneered a method of asking about prior sexual abuse which involved asking subjects about all sexual events in childhood. In replication with Canadian students we found that the mass of data generated by Finkelhor's method was difficult to analyze, so we operationalized a working definition of "abuse" (age difference between assailant and victim and use of force or threat) in terms of its power to predict poor self-esteem (11). Two surveys in Calgary, based on random sampling of adult women, identified 377 women aged 18 to 75 yr. (3) and 620 women aged 24 to 48 yr. (4). The modification of the Finkelhor technique (defining abuse as a sexual relationship before age 17, achieved by the authority of being 3 or more yr. older and/or by force or threat, found that 21.7% and 23.3% in the two surveys had experienced sexual abuse involving at least genital touching before age 17. A national Canadian survey of chiId sexual abuse (1) used with apparent success, methods devised by G d u p researchers. Because of complexities and length of the Finkelhor method and its modifications, we adapted the national survey methods for use in Further community mental health surveys. The crucial lead question in the new instrument is: "When you were growing up-that is bejbre your 17th birthday-did anyone ever touch or interfere with the sex parts of your body in a way you didn't want?" ("Sex parts" are defined for the subject in a standardized way, in response to any query.) Subsequent structured questions ask about number of different assailants and details of each type of assault. Asking only about unwanted sexual touching or attempted or achieved penetration before age 17 might produce conservative estimates of prevalence. The method used is phenomenological, seeking the respondent's own understanding of the term "abuse," a concept which previous researchers have been unable to define in terms of objective description, reliability, or validity (2).
'Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
402
C. BAGLEY
In a new study in Calgary in 1988-89, 750 women aged 18 to 27 yr. were interviewed by trained, female graduate students. Subjects were obtained through stratified random sampling of the telephone directory, within districts containing a high proportion of young adults. After initial agreement by 79.3% of those contacted, subjects were interviewed in their homes and paid $10 an hour for participation. Sociodemographic and mental health questions were asked first, with questions on unwanted sexual acts in childhood presented at the end of the hour-long interview, after rapport had been established. 240 subjects (or 32.0%) recalled at least one went of "unwanted" sexual contact before aae - 17. Most were sinale - contacts. but in 51 (6.8%) contact was continued for more than a day, sometimes for years. Long-term abuse, as in previous surveys in Calgary (3, 4) was associated with seriousness of the assault (fondling through intercourse) and within-family assault (chi-squared comparisons, p< .01). The proportion experiencing contact abuse (32.0%) was significantly higher ( p < .01) than in the two previous surveys. When similar age groups (19 to 27 yr.) in the present sample and i n combined data from the two previous community samples were compared, the prevalence figures (32.0% vs 33.2%) were not significantly different. These Canadian data, as well as the national Canadian survey (2) support Russell's conclusion (10) for the USA, that the prevalence of child sexual abuse is greater for women born after 1960 than before. Scores on the CES-D scale (9) measuring signs of depression in the past week indicated some concurrent validity of the abuse measure. In the nonabused group (n =510) 10.1% had scores above the dinical cut-off point (score 31 +); 20.5% of the 189 subjects recalling only a single event of abuse had scores of 31 + ; 40.6% of the 5 1 subjects experiencing prolonged abuse had scores of 31 + . Eta measuring variation of depression across the abuse categories was 0.49 (p
@ Psychological Reports 1990
DEVELOPMENT O F A MEASURE OF UNWANTED SEXUAL CONTACT IN CHILDHOOD, FOR USE IN COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SURVEYS CHRISTOPHER BAGLEY University of Calgary ' Summary.-Development of a measure of child sexual abuse, operationalized as unwanted sexual contact before age 17, is described. In a community mental health survey of 750 women aged 18 to 27 yr., 32% recalled unwanted sexual contact. 7 % experienced prolonged sexual assault before age 17 and had significantly higher scores as adults on the CESD Depression scale. There is now clear evidence that child sexual abuse is much more frequent than previously assumed (7). Estimates of rates, from recall of childhood in nondinical, adult populations have varied however from 4% to over 30% in women (2). Reasons for these variations include demogaphic profiles of populations accessed, number, type and order of questions, definitions of abuse and of "child" (8). Studies of adults' recall also underestimate prevalence given the reluctance of some individuals to disclose prior sexual assault, failure of conventional sampling to access the most traumatized populations, and the possibility of "dissociation" of current cognition and affect from earlier trauma (5). These factors imply that recall studies will give conservative estimates of both the prevalence and the severity of long-term sequels of child sexual abuse. FinkeLhor (6) pioneered a method of asking about prior sexual abuse which involved asking subjects about all sexual events in childhood. In replication with Canadian students we found that the mass of data generated by Finkelhor's method was difficult to analyze, so we operationalized a working definition of "abuse" (age difference between assailant and victim and use of force or threat) in terms of its power to predict poor self-esteem (11). Two surveys in Calgary, based on random sampling of adult women, identified 377 women aged 18 to 75 yr. (3) and 620 women aged 24 to 48 yr. (4). The modification of the Finkelhor technique (defining abuse as a sexual relationship before age 17, achieved by the authority of being 3 or more yr. older and/or by force or threat, found that 21.7% and 23.3% in the two surveys had experienced sexual abuse involving at least genital touching before age 17. A national Canadian survey of chiId sexual abuse (1) used with apparent success, methods devised by G d u p researchers. Because of complexities and length of the Finkelhor method and its modifications, we adapted the national survey methods for use in Further community mental health surveys. The crucial lead question in the new instrument is: "When you were growing up-that is bejbre your 17th birthday-did anyone ever touch or interfere with the sex parts of your body in a way you didn't want?" ("Sex parts" are defined for the subject in a standardized way, in response to any query.) Subsequent structured questions ask about number of different assailants and details of each type of assault. Asking only about unwanted sexual touching or attempted or achieved penetration before age 17 might produce conservative estimates of prevalence. The method used is phenomenological, seeking the respondent's own understanding of the term "abuse," a concept which previous researchers have been unable to define in terms of objective description, reliability, or validity (2).
'Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
402
C. BAGLEY
In a new study in Calgary in 1988-89, 750 women aged 18 to 27 yr. were interviewed by trained, female graduate students. Subjects were obtained through stratified random sampling of the telephone directory, within districts containing a high proportion of young adults. After initial agreement by 79.3% of those contacted, subjects were interviewed in their homes and paid $10 an hour for participation. Sociodemographic and mental health questions were asked first, with questions on unwanted sexual acts in childhood presented at the end of the hour-long interview, after rapport had been established. 240 subjects (or 32.0%) recalled at least one went of "unwanted" sexual contact before aae - 17. Most were sinale - contacts. but in 51 (6.8%) contact was continued for more than a day, sometimes for years. Long-term abuse, as in previous surveys in Calgary (3, 4) was associated with seriousness of the assault (fondling through intercourse) and within-family assault (chi-squared comparisons, p< .01). The proportion experiencing contact abuse (32.0%) was significantly higher ( p < .01) than in the two previous surveys. When similar age groups (19 to 27 yr.) in the present sample and i n combined data from the two previous community samples were compared, the prevalence figures (32.0% vs 33.2%) were not significantly different. These Canadian data, as well as the national Canadian survey (2) support Russell's conclusion (10) for the USA, that the prevalence of child sexual abuse is greater for women born after 1960 than before. Scores on the CES-D scale (9) measuring signs of depression in the past week indicated some concurrent validity of the abuse measure. In the nonabused group (n =510) 10.1% had scores above the dinical cut-off point (score 31 +); 20.5% of the 189 subjects recalling only a single event of abuse had scores of 31 + ; 40.6% of the 5 1 subjects experiencing prolonged abuse had scores of 31 + . Eta measuring variation of depression across the abuse categories was 0.49 (p
