The Relationship Between the Experience of Sexual Violence and Behavioral and Emotional Problems Among Korean Children and Adolescents – The Interaction Effect of Cumulative Risk Factors

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Background: Prior research has found that the experience of sexual violence is associated with severe psychological and behavioral problems (Calam et al., 1998; Herbert et al., 2019). However, in Korea, previous studies focusing on sexual violence have rarely included cases of child and adolescent victims who received service from prevention centers. Furthermore, little research has examined how the victims’ behavioral and emotional status is different from those without sexual violence. Besides, not much research has conducted how cumulative risk factors, known as critical factors for child development (Sameroff, 2006), are associated with children’s and adolescents’ mental health and whether such factors interact with the experience of sexual violence. To fill these voids, this study aims to probe the effect of the experience of sexual violence and cumulative risk factors on behavioral and emotional outcomes among Korean children and adolescents.

Methods: Data and samples: This study consisted of child and adolescent samples collected from Sunflower centers nationwide and a research company between September 2016 and March 2020 in Korea. Researchers received informed consent from the study participants. The institutional review board (IRB) approved the whole study procedure. For the child sample, there were (a) 34 female victims (27.42 %) and (b) 90 females (72.58 %) as the comparison group. For the adolescent sample, (a) 53 female victims (27.75 %) and (b) 138 females (72.25 %) as the comparison group were included in the study. The mean age of child victims and the comparison group was 9.3 and 8.9, respectively, while it was 14.9 and 14.8 for adolescent victims and the comparison group.
Measures: To measure the experience of sexual violence, this study coded ‘1’ for victims of sexual violence and ‘0’ for the comparison group. Cumulative risk (CR) was built by dichotomizing each risk factor exposure (0=no risk; 1=risk) and then summing the scores. A total of nine risk factors were included: 1) Parental Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D), Rosenberg Self-Esteem (RSE), Neighborhood Safety Subscale (NSS), welfare receipt, family income, family type, family size, and mother’s education level. Behavioral and emotional problems were measured by the child behavior checklist (CBCL) and the Korean youth self-report (K-YSR), each of which contained 12 symptom categories. The CBCL was completed by children’s parents, while the K-YSR was done by adolescents themselves. Stepwise regression was performed to observe variables’ unique associations and interaction effects.

Results: The result shows that without interaction effects (Model 1 and 2), CR and the experience of sexual violence (ESV) were significantly associated with all of the symptom categories of CBCL and K-YSR. The interaction effect (Model 3) was statistically significant along with YSR symptoms: anxious/depressed, somatic complaints, social problems, attention problems, other problems, internal problems, and total score of behavior problems.

Implications: This study found that the experience of sexual violence and cumulative risk factors were associated with behavioral and emotional problems. This result highlights that focused attention is needed for child and adolescent victims and those who are exposed to multiple risk factors.

Authors

• Jungtae Choi, Sungkyunkwan University
  Presenting Author

• Kihyun Kim, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hyun Ji Lee, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sungeun Park, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mira Lee, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Seoyeong Gwon, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Suji Lim, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author