The roles of gender and coping styles in the relationship between child abuse and the SCL-90-R subscales 'psychoticism' and 'Paranoid Ideation'

Few of the many studies demonstrating a relationship between various types of child abuse and a range of experiences indicative of psychosis analyze their findings by gender. This study, therefore, tested the hypotheses that child sexual and physical abuse are related to subsequent 'Psychoticism' and 'Paranoid Ideation', and that the relationships are not gender specific. Three hundred and thirty eight adult New Zealanders completed questionnaires including demographic information, the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90-R), the Coping Responses Inventory, and the questions 'Were you physically [sexually] abused prior to the age of 16 years?" Multivariate analysis found that Psychoticism and Depression were the only two of the nine SCL-90-R subscales that were significantly higher in all three abuse groupings (sexual only, physical only, and both sexual and physical) than in the group reporting no abuse. When the same analyses were run separately for men and women, both males and females who reported both physical and sexual abuse scored significantly higher than those reporting no abuse on the Psychoticism and Paranoid Ideation subscales. There was, however, no significant difference, for either gender, for those who reported physical but not sexual abuse. There were significant interactions between gender and abuse type, with males who had been sexually abused scoring particularly high on Psychoticism and Emotional Discharge and particularly low on Seeking Guidance/Support. The findings are consistent with previous studies demonstrating a relationship between child abuse and psychosis. While men and women might employ different coping mechanisms, the relationship itself is not gender specific