Treatment of sexually abused children

Cognitive-behavioural appproaches and some forms of treatment may be beneficial in sexually abused children.

A Cochrane review (abstract , review ) included 10 studies with a total of 847 subjects. Data suggest that cognitive-behavioural approaches may have a positive impact on the sequelae of child sexual abuse, but most results were statistically non-significant.

A systematic review including 29 studies was abstracted in DARE. There were 17 studies with pre-post design, 5 quasi-experimental and 7 experimental designs. The interventions included sex education, music therapy, family therapy, group therapy, and cognitive-behavioural treatment.

All but one of the pre-post test studies found significant improvement on at least one of the outcome measures (parent observation measures, child self-report measures, teacher/therapist ratings) over time periods ranging from 9 weeks to 12 months. Three of the five quasi-experimental studies failed to find any advantage of treatment. Three experimental studies comparing treatment with no treatment found significant effects of treatment.

Ədəbiyyat

1. Finkelhor D, Berliner L. Research on the treatment of sexually abused children: a review and recommendations. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 1995 Nov;34(11):1408-23.
2. Macdonald G, Higgins JP, Ramchandani P et al. Cognitive-behavioural interventions for children who have been sexually abused. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2012;(5):CD001930.