The Roles of Gender and Coping Styles in the Relationship Between Child Abuse and the SCL-90-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