Impact of Child Sexual Abuse on Mental And Physical Health

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Impact of child sexual abuse on mental and physical health of a child
Literature Review
Introduction
Child sexual abuse (CSA) has become one of the critical global health issues which
can be associated with a varied range of negative outcomes. Research shows that there is a
close connection between health-related, psychological outcomes and childhood sexual abuse
along with issues such as psychosocial problems, psychiatric disorder, self-harm and physical
health diagnosis like obesity and HIV (Hailes, Yu, Danese, & Faze, 2019). In this light,
this literature review will examine how SCA impacts the mental and physical health of
children along with finding how such issues must be dealt with suitable interventions.
Discussion and analysis
The term CSA comprises several activities such as forceful intercourse, oral-genital
contact, exhibitionism or child being exposed to adult activity and using children for
pornography. In the year 2002, WHO estimated that around 150 million girls and 73 million
boys under 18 years of age had experienced varied forms of sexual abuse. The US
Department of Justice and The Centre's for Disease Control conducted another study and
found that 11% girls and 4% of boys studying in high schools had been forced to indulge in
sexual activities in some point of their lives ( Singh, Parsekar, & Nair, 2014). Other than
this, many children become subjected to biases and discrimination due to which objective
information concerning CSA remains underreported and most of them go unobserved.
According to Murray, Nguyen, & Cohen (2014), CSA often takes place beside other forms of
neglect or abuse or in a family environment where the child may feel low family support and
high stresses due to low parental education, high poverty, single parenthood, domestic

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violence, low caregiver warmth, etc. Furthermore, children who are emotionally needy,
impulsive and who pose physical or learning disability and mental health issues show to be at
greater risk.
In terms of risk factors, females or girls are considered to be at greater risk as
compared to males or boys. Some researchers, however, pinpoint that boys are more
frequently abused than girls probably because they are more reluctant to report abuse faced.
Whether a girl or a boy, both faces adverse outcomes due to CSA. Collin-Vézina, Daigneault,
& Hébert (2013) stated that among several models to measure impacts caused due to CSA,
Four-Factor Traumagenics Model asserts that CSA modifies child's emotional and cognitive
orientation towards the world and results in trauma by disrupting their affective and self-
concept capabilities. This model underlines the problems of intimacy and trust which are
specially interpreted among CSA victims. This unique nature of maltreatment causing CSA is
further highlighted by four stress-causing dimensions victims may face: traumatic
sexualization, stigmatization, betrayal and powerlessness. While traumatic sexualization is
referred to victim’s sexuality which is distorted by CSA, betrayal refers to the loss of trust in
caregivers which shatters relationship that never supports or protects child from being abused
or reports of any such incident. Powerlessness can be expressed through power-related
problems where the child is unable to change the situation even though, he/she feels the
situation threatening and stigmatization occurs when perpetrators reinforce manipulative
discourse for the victim due to dominant social negative attitude.
Other than emotional stress, CSA can be associated with long-short term physical
health risks as well as negative health outcomes. Research evidence states that mental-health-
related issues in child survivors stem out of complex matrix formed due to inter-relationship
between emotional, behavioural, cognitive and social factors. Physically, the sexually abused
child remains more than often ill and have multiple surgeries. They are prone to chronic pain