Caregiver emotional support and adolescent trauma symptoms after sexual abuse: Adolescent age matters

Adolescents who have been sexually abused often experience trauma symptoms, and caregiver emotional support has been highlighted as fundamental to the recovery process. Yet the benefits of caregiver emotional support may differ for adolescents of different ages.

This study examines whether the relation between caregiver emotional support and adolescent trauma symptoms after sexual abuse varies across adolescents of different ages.

Participants were 829 adolescents; 92.7 % were female and the remainder was male. All reported sexual abuse and were brought to a Children's Advocacy Center in the United States. The mean age was 13.98 years (SD = 1.78), and 62.7 % identified as Hispanic/Latine.

Adolescents reported on trauma symptoms and on general and abuse-specific emotional support received from a non-offending caregiver. Adolescents also reported on cumulative traumatic events and abuse severity.

Adolescent age moderated the association between caregiver general emotional support and adolescent trauma symptoms (B = 0.08, SEB = 0.03, t[825] = 2.39, p = .017, sr² = 0.01), with a stronger association for younger adolescents than for older adolescents. Severity of the abuse accounted for some of the moderator effect in the total sample, but not in sensitivity analyses conducted with only female adolescents. Adolescent age did not moderate the association between abuse-specific emotional support and adolescent trauma symptoms (B = 0.03, SEB = 0.03, t[825] = 0.85, p = .397).

Caregiver general emotional support was more protective against trauma symptoms among younger, as compared to older, adolescents.