Cognitive coping styles of women sexually abused in childhood: a qualitative study

The aim was to investigate cognitive coping strategies used by a nonclinical sample of women with a history of childhood sexual abuse, to examine whether cognitive appraisals affected their current coping strategies and psychological well-being.

Qualitative research methods were used to enable the sample to convey their own ideas about factors and meanings they attributed to their experience of child sexual abuse. The sample of 40 was drawn from one of two stratified sub samples randomly selected from electoral rolls for interview in 1989 and re-interviewed in 1995. One sub sample had reported childhood sexual abuse and the other had reported none. Inductive content analysis and coding of themes were carried out using appropriate software and supplemented by quantitative interview data.

Six main coping strategies were identified and then assessed to determine their mediating influence on psychiatric disorder, self-esteem and self reported difficulties experienced as adults. Overall, abuse characteristics did not predict outcome but women who "deliberately suppressed" the abuse incidents were more likely to have low self-esteem and women who "reframed" were significantly less likely to have a psychiatric diagnosis.

Some cognitive coping strategies employed after experiencing child sexual abuse impinge on later psychological well-being or subsequent relationships with other people. One of the more challenging findings to come out of the study was that women who "reframed" the sexual abuse event were more likely to have favorable mental health outcomes but were also more likely to report that their own child had been sexually abused.