Effects of childhood abuse last a lifetime: study
Older people who experienced sexual or physical abuse as children suffer from worse mental and physical health than their peers who weren’t abused, Australian researchers report.
“The effects of childhood abuse appear to last a lifetime,” Dr. Brian Draper of the University of New South Wales in Sydney and colleagues write. “Further research is required to improve understanding of the pathways that lead to such deleterious outcomes and ways to minimize its late-life effects.”
Studies have linked abuse in childhood to impaired physical and mental health in a person’s adult years, but there is little information on how a history of abuse might affect older people, explain Draper and colleagues in a report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
To investigate, they looked at 21,000 men and women, age 60 and older, participating in a suicide prevention study—6.7 percent of whom reported having been physically abused as children and 6.5 percent of whom had been sexually abused.
Men and women who reported either type of abuse were 35 percent more likely to be in poor physical health and at 89 percent greater risk of poor mental health than their peers with no history of abuse, the researchers found. People who had been both physically and sexually abused were 60 percent more likely to be in poor physical health and 2.4 times as likely to be in poor mental health.
Individuals with a history of abuse were more likely to be smokers, while those who drank excessively were more likely to have been abused. The researchers also found that women but not men who had been abused as children were at greater risk of cardiovascular disease.
“Routine screening for child abuse in late life might lead to better health outcomes, because there is evidence from controlled trials in women with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) associated with childhood abuse that cognitive behavioral therapy can relieve suffering,” the researchers note.
Other strategies to improve physical and mental health in seniors with a history of abuse could include community-based education programs, which have been shown to reduce loneliness and stress, as well as efforts to help people make healthy lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking, exercising and eating better, they add.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, February 2008.
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