[Relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, child sexual abuse and sexual re-victimization]

There is a relationship between child sexual abuse and adult psychopathology. We report a 35 year-old woman derived to the Psychiatric Service of the Curicó Hospital due to anxiety and depressive symptoms lasting eight years, to illustrate the above mentioned relationship. At the psychiatric unit, a post traumatic stress disorder of belated onset, triggered by sexual abuse during childhood, re-edited after her daughter's birth, was diagnosed. This case illustrates different factors, which, in retrospective studies, have been associated with the morbid consequences of child sexual abuse, and allows an understanding of how different sexually traumatic events, during a person's lifetime, contribute to the development of a psychopathology. The problem was confronted by the mental health team at different levels and symptoms subsided in few interventions. An active search of the traumatic sexual background, allowed this achievement. The importance of studying and validating clinical situations as the present case, with methodologies based on evidence, is stressed.