Child Sexual Abuse—an Increasing Rate of Diagnosis

An Expert and Expectations: A review on Medico-legal opinions in alleged sexual abuse victims

“…Even among the published studies, wide differences have existed between the rate of abnormal or supportive findings reported among children examined for suspected sexual abuse, from 50% to 90%, [14][15][16][17] to 15-20% in many reports in the 1990s, [18][19][20] to less than 4% in large series published since 2000 [21,22]. In our study, a supportive medical opinion was found among 52% of children less than 10 years.…”

“…Medical literature on opinions given by experts on sexual abuse based on genital findings is scarce and limited to case reports or descriptive studies [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Even among the published studies, wide differences have existed between the rate of abnormal or supportive findings reported among children examined for suspected sexual abuse, from 50% to 90%, [14][15][16][17] to 15-20% in many reports in the 1990s, [18][19][20] to less than 4% in large series published since 2000 [21,22].…”

Who works with adult victims of childhood sexual abuse?

“…There is good evidence (Hobbs & Wynne, 1987) that diagnosis of sexual abuse in childhood has increased in Britain in recent years. Disclosure of historical abuse in adulthood also appears to be increas ing, but this area has received little research attention.…”

Sexual assault practice: Myths and mistakes

“…Hence publications of that time indicated an extraordinarily high incidence of abnormal anal findings in children examined in the setting of allegations of sexual abuse: up to 25% of girls and 83% of boys. 21,22 It was not really until the 1990s that US clinicians began to question the scientific basis of these so-called abnormalities. Nowadays it is accepted that the findings described earlier are not indicative of trauma but are well documented in populations of non-abused children.…”