Sexual Health.

Mental Disorder Linked To Sexual Assault, Violence

Posted by sbroome on August 5, 2011 3:55 PM

Women are more likely to develop a mental disorder if they have been victims of rape, sexual assault, stalking, or intim... 

Women are more likely to develop a mental disorder if they have been victims of rape, sexual assault, stalking, or intimate-partner violence, reports Health.com. The revelation is based on a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study exhibits a strong correlation, even if it is not entirely surprising, and shows the importance of doctors and other health-care workers to ask women about past episodes of violence, even if they happened years ago.

Andrea Gielen, Sc.D., director for the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study, told Health.com, “When professionals are treating women with depression or mental health issues, it's best to be clued in to the fact that violence might be behind [it].”

For the study, researchers looked at health data from a nationally representative sample of Australian women between the ages of 16 and 85.

According to Health.com, the results showed:

• Episodes of sexual assault, stalking, and other "gender-based violence" were all too common, with 27% of the group reporting at least one episode of abuse.
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• Fifty-seven percent of the women with a history of abuse also had a history of depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, or anxiety (including panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder), versus 28% of the women who had not experienced gender-based violence.
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• Among women who had been exposed to at least three different types of violence, the rate of mental disorders or substance abuse rose to 89%.

Lead author Susan Rees, Ph.D., a senior research fellow in psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney told Health.com, “The extent and strength of the association we found was surprising and very concerning.”

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