Childhood Sexual Abuse among Adults with First-Episode Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Comparison with Healthy Controls

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Published

2025-12-19

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54169/ijocp.v5i02.02

Keywords:

Prevalence, child and adolescent, socio-demographic, clinical profile., Anxiety, Depression, Psychological Distress, Resilience

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Issue

Vol. 5 No. 02 (2025): Indian Journal of Clinical Psychiatry

Section

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

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Copyright (c) 2025 Shradha Khatri, Sunil Goyal

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors

  • Shradha Khatri Graded Specialist, MD, DNB (Psychiatry), AFMS, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
  • Sunil Goyal Former Professor and Head, Dept of Psychiatry, Institute of Naval Medicine, Mumbai, India. Abstract

Abstract

Background: Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) has been identified as a serious public health concern and has been a global challenge. The severe, chronic and frequent the abuse, more likely the abused adults are to show symptoms of Psychiatric disorders.
Aim: To study the prevalence of CSA among adults presenting first time with a depressive episode or Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Methods: 64 consecutive consenting adults among Armed Forces personnel and their families, diagnosed as first depressive episode or Generalized Anxiety Disorder as per International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD-10) checklist and a control group of gender and age-group matched adults were assessed for CSA using a 28-item retrospective, self-report Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-28) at an Armed Forces hospital.
Results: Majority of cases reported no CSA, whereas majority of the control group reported moderate severity of CSA. Among the cases, statistically significant co-relation was neither observed between the diagnosis and severity of CSA nor the severity of illness with severity of CSA.
Conclusion: Absence of any signs of psychopathology could perhaps be due to psychological endurance, resilience and higher stress tolerance developed in the aftermath of early age traumatic incidents.

How to Cite

Khatri, S., & Goyal, S. (2025). Childhood Sexual Abuse among Adults with First-Episode Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Comparison with Healthy Controls. Indian Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 5(02), 4–11. https://doi.org/10.54169/ijocp.v5i02.02

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