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The prevalence of child sexual abuse in community and student samples: a meta-analysis
Noemí Pereda1, Georgina Guilera, Maria Forns
1Departament de Personalitat, Avaluació i Tractament Psicològics, Facultat de Psicologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Passeig Vall d'Hebron 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain. npereda@ub.edu
Background:
Studies conducted internationally confirm that child sexual abuse is a much more widespread problem than previously thought, with even the lowest prevalence rates including a large number of victims that need to be taken into account.
Objective:
To carry out a meta-analysis of the prevalence of child sexual abuse in order to establish an overall international figure.
Methods:
Studies were retrieved from various electronic databases. The measure of interest was the prevalence of abuse reported in each article, these values being combined via a random effects model. A detailed analysis was conducted of the effects of various moderator variables.
Results:
Sixty-five articles covering 22 countries were included. The analysis showed that 7.9% of men (7.4% without outliers) and 19.7% of women (19.2% without outliers) had suffered some form of sexual abuse prior to the age of eighteen.
Conclusions:
The results of the present meta-analysis indicate that child sexual abuse is a serious problem in the countries analysed.
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