A Model For Predicting Depression in Victims of Rape

This article proposes a model for understanding the factors contributing to long-standing depression in women who have been raped. A path analysis of data obtained from 71 women who had been raped revealed that women with general-ized beliefs that they could not control events in their lives were more likely to attribute responsibility for their rape to permanent intrapsychic factors and were more likely to be depressed. Women who perceived that they had higher levels of internal control tended to have higher levels of education, were more likely to be employed, and were less likely to be depressed more than one year after having been raped. Childhood sexual abuse was not associated with internal control or attributions of causality or depression in this analysis. Implications for the deter-mination of prognosis and treatment recommendations in civil litigation assess-ments are discussed. Forensic mental health practitioners are increasingly asked to assess the damages to victims of sexual assault who are seek-ing financial compensation for the devas-tating effects of rape. These effects in-clude depression and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.'. In addi-tion to documenting current levels of dis-tress, we are also often asked to comment on long-term prognosis and possible treatment outcomes. This article seeks to develop a model for understanding fac