Adolescent Medicine & Child Psychology

Biography

Biography: Delphine Collin-Vézina

Abstract

Despite the increasing awareness of the impact of sexual abuse on victims’ health and well-being, this issue has yet to be fully acknowledged as a societal matter that requires extensive prevention and intervention. We hypothesize that this field does not receive full recognition, due in part to a lack of agreement on what should legally and socially be considered under the umbrella term of child and youth sexual abuse. As part of a program of research exploring this issue, we conducted a systematic review of prevalence studies published between 2000 and 2015. Two independent raters coded study variables, focusing on how the dimensions of ‘child and youth’, ‘sexual’ and ‘abuse’ were articulated in each of the definitions. The review yielded 187 studies. Findings confirmed the wide - and concerning - diversity of definitions used throughout studies. The concept of ‘child and youth’ was either implied and vague (‘being a victim before puberty’) or defined as an event that occurred before a specific age that ranged from age 12 to 18. Rarely was the legal age for sexual consent included in the definition. The ‘sexual’ nature of the acts differed tremendously across definitions from specific terms (‘were you exposed to genitals’), to broad account (‘were you sexually abused’). The ‘abusive’ nature of the experiences also varied widely across definitions, including factors such as relationship with perpetrator, age difference between victim and perpetrator, grooming behaviors and victims’ lack of consent. The field of sexual abuse is clearly awaiting a well-agreed upon definition that recognizes the complexity of experiences, yet offers a common language to inform practice, policy and epidemiology research.