Cognitions about Sexual Abuse and Youths' Mental Health

对性虐待与青少年心理健康的认知

• 批准号: 7096163
• 负责人: VALERIE A SIMON
• 金额: $ 7.88万
• 依托单位: WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-05-02 至 2008-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7096163
• 关键词: clinical research

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) is a known risk factor for adolescent adjustment problems, such as depression, post traumatic stress disorder, externalizing problems, substance use, and risky sexual behavior. However, outcomes for youth with CSA histories markedly vary, and methods that aid in identifying processes that place adolescents at risk or aid in recovery are sorely needed. The proposed project develops a method for indexing individual differences in how adolescents make meaning of their abuse, a process believed to be central in post-CSA adaptation. Successful meaning-making entails actively processing abuse-related affects and cognitions, deriving coherent meaning from them, and integrating these meanings into core belief systems in a way that restores positive views of self, others, and the world. Identifying individual differences in how adolescents make meaning of abuse experiences can advance our understanding of when adjustment problems are likely following CSA. Yet little is known about the assessment of meaning-making processes in CSA victims or how such processes are related to adjustment over time. The proposed study seeks to develop a coding system for assessing how adolescents with confirmed cases of CSA make meaning of their abuse experiences. The coding system focuses on the structural elements of abuse-specific narratives, including coherence, organization, and resolution strategies (CORS). There are 3 specific aims: (1) establish the reliability of the coding system; (2) establish the validity of the coding system; and (3) examine the role of meaning-making in the longitudinal associations between conditions related to abuse (e.g., abuse severity, caregiver support) and subsequent psychological adjustment. Extant longitudinal data from 121 adolescents with confirmed CSA histories will be used to accomplish these aims. The data include measures of abuse severity obtained from case records, caregiver support and adjustment problems assessed within 8 weeks of abuse discovery (T1), a year (T2) and 6 years later (T3), and transcribed oral narratives of abuse experiences (T3). Pilot data provides strong evidence for the reliability, validity, and utility of our narrative coding system. This is the first study to systematically assess meaning-making processes in a relatively large sample of CSA-specific narratives. Understanding differences in how individuals make meaning of their abuse and how such differences are related to adjustment problems will contribute to the design of more specific interventions.

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童期性虐待（CSA）是青少年适应问题的已知风险因素，如抑郁症，创伤后应激障碍，外化问题，物质使用和危险的性行为。然而，青少年与CSA历史的结果显着不同，并在确定过程中，将青少年处于危险或援助恢复的方法是非常需要的。拟议的项目开发了一种方法，用于索引青少年如何使他们的虐待的意义，一个过程被认为是中央CSA后适应的个体差异。成功的意义创造需要积极处理与虐待相关的情感和认知，从中获得连贯的意义，并将这些意义整合到核心信念体系中，以恢复对自我、他人和世界的积极看法。确定青少年如何使虐待经验的意义的个体差异，可以促进我们的理解，当调整问题可能以下CSA。然而，很少有人知道CSA受害者的意义制造过程的评估或如何随着时间的推移，这些过程与调整。拟议的研究旨在开发一个编码系统，以评估确诊CSA病例的青少年如何理解他们的虐待经历。编码系统侧重于滥用特定叙述的结构要素，包括连贯性，组织和解决策略（CORS）。有三个具体目标：（1）建立编码系统的可靠性;（2）建立编码系统的有效性;（3）检查意义制造在与虐待有关的条件之间的纵向关联中的作用（例如，虐待严重程度、照顾者支持）和随后的心理调整。来自121名确诊有CSA病史的青少年的现有纵向数据将用于实现这些目标。这些数据包括从病例记录中获得的滥用严重程度的测量，在发现滥用8周（T1），一年（T2）和6年后（T3）评估的护理人员支持和调整问题，以及转录的滥用经历的口头叙述（T3）。试点数据提供了强有力的证据，我们的叙事编码系统的可靠性，有效性和实用性。这是第一个研究系统地评估意义的过程中，一个相对较大的样本CSA特定的叙述。了解个人如何理解其虐待行为的差异以及这种差异如何与调整问题相关，将有助于设计更具体的干预措施。