Friday, 14 January 2005 - 12:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Poster Session I

Mothers of Sexually Abused Children: Their Own Trauma, Relationship Characteristics and Current Mental Health

Puopose: Studies have shown that a disproportionately large number of mothers of sexually abused children also have their own history of sexual abuse. Understanding this intergenerational tendency in sexual abuse is crucial for prevention efforts. In order to investigate the mechanism of the transmission over generations, the current study aims to examine the relationships among mothers' own sexual abuse experiences, relationship characteristics including past relationship with her mother, current romantic relationship style, and current family relationship with indices of current depression and dissociation. Methods: The current analysis utilized the data from the longest-running longitudinal study in the U.S. on sexual abuse, which began in 1987, and is currently collecting the sixth wave of the data (see, e.g. Trickett & Putnam, 1993). The total sample included girls aged 6-16 at the beginning of the study, half of whom had experienced confirmed familial sexual abuse, and their non-abusing mothers or caretakers. The current analyses focuses on the mothers of the participants (92% of the adult sample, n=126). Interviews and standardized measures were used to obtain information about the mothers' history of sexual abuse, their past relationship with her mother, current romantic relationship style, current family relationship and current levels of depression and dissociation. Results: Supporting earlier findings, 45% of the mothers of sexually abused girls reported experiencing sexual abuse in childhood, as compared with 9% of the comparing group mothers. Next, we regressed mothers' depression scores on their sexual abuse experiences, past relationship with her mother, current romantic relationship style and current family relationship indices. The results showed that mothers' depression was predicted (adjusted R2 = .231, p< .001) by mothers' current romantic relationship style (beta = - . 343, p < .001) and current family relationship index (beta = - .313, p < .004), but not by sexual abuse or by past relationship with her own mother. Dissociation was predicted (adjusted R2 = .079, p< .05) by mothers' current romantic relationship style (beta = -.289, p<.05). However, when we examined the relation among past and current relationship characteristics and sexual abuse experience, maternal sexual abuse was significantly associated with her past relationship with her own mother (beta = - .220, p<.05) and the past relationship with her own mother strongly predicted mother's current family relationship (beta = .268, p< .05). Mothers' sexual abuse experience was not related to current romantic relationship style. Implication: The findings indicate that maternal sexual abuse is associated with mental health indirectly through mothers' past and current family relationship characteristics. This has important implications for intervention and prevention efforts: enhancing the quality of mother and child dyad and promoting familial support may be a key intervention element for recovery as well as preventing the future abuse of next generation.

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