The influence of attachment on perceived stress and cortisol response to acute stress in women sexually abused in childhood or adolescence
Section snippets
Background
The rate of women who have experienced sexual abuse in childhood and/or adolescence (CSA) can be approximated to one in seven women, or 16% (Molnar et al., 2001). Girls are at higher risk (around 2.5–3 times) than boys (Finkelhor, 1993, Fergusson et al., 1996, Sobsey et al., 1997).
Most studies on the risk factors of CSA point to the family environment and family dysfunction as important influential variables (Finkelhor, 1993, Mullen et al., 1993, Briere and Elliot, 1994, Fergusson et al., 1996,
Objectives
A network of relationships has been documented between child abuse (namely CSA), cortisol response to an acute stress (HPA), attachment, and psychopathology; more specifically, associations have been shown between CSA and HPA (e.g. Heim and Nemeroff, 1999), attachment and HPA (e.g. Quirin et al., 2008), psychopathology and HPA (e.g. Soravia et al., 2006), CSA and attachment (e.g. Neufeld Bailey et al., 2007), CSA and psychopathology (e.g. Barker-Collo and Read, 2003); moreover, several
Participants
Two groups of adult female subjects were included in the study: a clinical group (women with an experience of CSA) and a control group. In order to recruit the clinical group, several centers, which provide anonymous assistance to adult victims of sexual abuse, were contacted; they systematically distributed brochures to their clients, describing the study and proposing to contact the research unit; participation was voluntary and anonymous. Otherwise, the centers did not intervene in the
Abuse
All subjects included in the abused group reported several positive responses on the STI items, some expressing an experience of relatively moderate abuse (e.g. provocative touching) and others an experience of more severe abuse (e.g. genital rape). The STI scores derived from the ETI ranged between 0 and 22 for the control group (mean = 5.71, S.D. = 8.53) and between 4 and 618 (mean = 67.92, S.D. = 72.48) for the clinical group. The small overlap is due to the 6 control subjects who reported some
Discussion
We evaluated the perceived stress as well as the endocrine responses to an experimental psychosocial stress session (TSST) of 44 women, a part of them having been exposed to sexual abuse in their childhood and/or adolescence. Overall, the average scores of the whole group of participants showed a coherent pattern of activation and deactivation of both kinds of indicators. The visual examination of the data showed a trend (not statistically significant) of abused women to present a higher
Role of the funding source
Funding for the study was provided by from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) No. 3200B0-100676/1 awarded to B. Pierrehumbert. The SNF had no further role in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of interest
None of the authors have any conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) No. 3200B0-100676/1.
Association “Faire le Pas”, Lausanne.
We thank the psychologists and psychiatrists who conducted the interviews, ran the experiments, or provided support for the study: Clelia Argenziano, Catherine Badertscher, Maria Bayoi, Olivier Chouchena, Emmanuelle Cohin, Elisabetta Constantino, Giusi Daniele, Céline Dessarzin, Nevena Dimitrova, Daniela Equestre, Carol Gachet, Nathalie Glatz, Olivier Halfon, Markus Heinrichs, Dominique Laufer,
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2021, CortexCitation Excerpt :Childhood physical and sexual abuse are prevalent issues (lifetime prevalence of physical abuse is 28% and lifetime prevalence of sexual abuse is 21%) in the United States and are associated with increased risk of future psychopathology (Dong et al., 2003; Felitti et al., 1998; Gilbert et al., 2009). Specifically, abuse during childhood is linked to emotional dysfunction (e.g., symptoms of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder; PTSD) as well as changes in the psychophysiological response to stress (e.g., blunted cortisol response to stress) that often persists into adulthood (Anda et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2010; Gilbert et al., 2009; Linares et al., 2013; Pierrehumbert et al., 2009; Trickett et al., 2014). The impact of childhood abuse is significant; these experiences are linked to approximately 45% of childhood-onset psychiatric disorders (e.g., mood, anxiety, substance use, and disruptive behavior disorders) and 80% of childhood and adolescent suicide attempts (Dube et al., 2001; Green et al., 2010).
Blunted salivary cortisol response to psychosocial stress in women with posttraumatic stress disorder
2020, Journal of Psychiatric Research
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