Profiles of adult survivors of severe sexual, physical and emotional institutional abuse in Ireland

Abstract

Adult survivors of institutional abuse were interviewed with a comprehensive assessment protocol which included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Institutional Child Abuse Processes and Coping Inventory, the Structured Clinical Interviews for Disorders of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV axis I disorders and personality disorders, the Trauma Symptoms Inventory, a Life Problems Checklist, the Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory and the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. Profiles were identified for subgroups that described severe sexual (N = 60), physical (N = 102), or emotional (N = 85) abuse as their worst forms of maltreatment. Survivors of severe sexual abuse had the most abnormal profile, which was characterised by higher rates of all forms of child maltreatment and higher rates of post‐traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and substance abuse, antisocial personality disorder, trauma symptoms and life problems. Survivors of severe emotional abuse were better adjusted than the other two groups. The profile of survivors of severe physical abuse occupied an intermediate position between the other two groups. A thorough assessment of abuse history and current functioning should be conducted when providing services to adult survivors of institutional abuse, since this may have important implications for the intensity of services required. Survivors of severe sexual abuse may require more intensive services. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Investigating institutional abuse survivors’ help-seeking attitudes with the Inventory of Attitudes towards Seeking Mental Health Services

“…Since many trauma survivors with potentially treatable disorders seem to be reluctant to seek mental health services, we intended to investigate attitudes towards service use in a sample of adult survivors of institutional abuse with IASMHS. Institutional abuse survivors experienced sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse in their early lives and many are affected by mental disorders and psychosocial problems in their adulthood (Fitzpatrick et al, 2010; Lueger-Schuster et al, 2013). As research on attitudes towards mental health service use in clinical samples is rather sparse, we intended to provide a first exploratory comparison of IASMHS scales in our trial with other psychological distressed samples.…”

When the Primary Caregiver is Missing: Investigating Proximal and Distal Variables Involved in Institutionalised Children's Adjustment

“…Institutional rearing falls outside the range of the typical childhood environment, due to the neglect condition embedded in the structure of the institution itself negatively influencing two key domains of a child's development: cognitive and emotional (St Petersburg‐USA Orphanage Research Team, ), with potentially long‐term negative outcomes (Fitzpatrick et al ., ). The absence of a primary caregiver figure and of a stable and continuing attachment bond, even when health and nutritional needs are met, represents the main deprivation issue that faces institutionalised children (Bowlby, ).…”

Early emotional trauma in alcohol-dependent men: prevalence, associations and predictive value

“…Mirsal et al 8 showed that the frequency of EET experienced by a sample comprising alcohol-dependent individuals (37.2% emotional abuse, 31.1% physical abuse; 11.1% sexual abuse) was significantly higher than that found in the group without such disorder (22.24% emotional abuse; 18.1% physical abuse; 3.1% sexual abuse). According to a different perspective, Fitzpatrick et al 12 and Trent et al 13 found that individuals who were victims of severe mistreatment during childhood showed very high alcoholism rates in adulthood, reaching up to 84%, depending on the type of EET they experienced.…”