Psychiatric status of intrafamilial child sexual abuse victims

The initial psychiatric profile of a large sample of sexually abused children who presented at an outpatient child psychiatry clinic was assessed. The results identified a wide diversity in victim responses to incest. The older the victim, the closer the relationship of the offender to the child, the greater the frequency of abuse incidents, the longer the duration of the abuse, the offender having a history of alcohol abuse, and the victim being a victim of physical abuse as well as sexual abuse were all related to the presence of a DSM-III axis I clinical disorder.