Sexual Assault and Mental Illness in College Women: The Role of Family Chaos

Approximately one in six girls experience childhood sexual assault (Townsend & Rheingold, 2013); one in five young women experience sexual assault while in college (Krebs et al., 2009). Data on victims of both childhood and teen/adulthood sexual assault will be analyzed to see if re-victimization increases anxiety and depression symptoms. It is hypothesized that childhood and/or teen/adulthood sexual assault will positively correlate with anxiety and/or depression, and mental illness is hypothesized to be positively correlated with family chaos. In addition, we will test whether family chaos is a moderator of the relationship between sexual assault and mental illness. Data have been collected from college women (N= 206) and the survey included Retrospective Family Unpredictability Scale (Ross & McDuff, XXXX), The Child Sexual Abuse Questionnaire (Smolak et al., 1990), Sexual Experiences Survey (Koss & Oros, 1982), The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) (Radloff, 1977), and Trait Anxiety Scale items (Spielberger et al., 1983). We will analyze the data and present findings pertaining to our hypotheses. Results will be discussed in regards to awareness and treatment of women who have been sexually victimized. Finally, we will highlight implications for empowering women to decrease possible mental health effects of victimization