The purpose of this study was to explore how the experience of
childhood sexual abuse is related to long-term psychological and
sexual functioning in a nonclinical and nonstudent community sample of
women. Questionnaires were distributed to 1,500 nurses and returned
anonymously. Fifty-four women who had been sexually abused as children
(age 15 or younger) responded. These subjects were then matched with
54 nonabused control subjects. Although there was no difference on a
measure of self-esteem, the abused group reported more symptoms of
distress on the Global Severity Index and on seven out of nine
subscales of the Derogatis Brief Symptom Inventory. They also reported
more disturbance on a scale which examined psychological symptoms that
have been commonly reported in the literature to be particularly
associated with sexual abuse. These differences between the abused and
nonabused groups were evident even after controlling for differences
in subjects' perceptions of parental emotional support. Unlike the
results for psychological adjustment, however, the abused subjects did
not differ from the control subjects on self-reported levels of sexual
satisfaction or sexual dysfunction.