A study of child sexual abuse in relation to parent and peer attachment

Page: 344-349

Damanjit Sandhu and Kirandeep Kaur (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab) Dimpy Mahanta (Department of Psychology, Cotton University, Guwahati, Assam)

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is documented to negatively affecting the quality of children’s attachment representations, thus the current study aimed to study the association of sexual abuse experiences among children with attachment with parents (father & mother) and peers and the difference between sexual abuse victims and the controls in their attachment quality with parents (father & mother) and peers. The sample for the present research comprised of 550 early adolescents (275 males & 275 females) of age ranging from12 to 15 years randomly selected from various schools nearby different tea estates of Assam majorly catering to the children of tea garden workers. Children coming from various tea gardens constituted the sample for the present study. The participant adolescents were screened for having sexual abuse experiences to obtain a sample of 53 adolescents (19 males & 34 females) having a history of sexual abuse with the help of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire by Berstein and Fink (1998). An equal number (19 males & 34 females) were selected in the control group matched on significant aspects like age, sex, socio-economic status, parental education etc. An attachment measure, viz., Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-Revised (IPPA-R) by Gullone and Robinson (2005) was administered to the sample to study their attachment quality with their parents and peers. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and t-test were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that sexual abuse experiences are negatively associated with various dimensions of parent and peer attachment among children and that there exists significant difference in the sexual abuse victims and the controls in their attachment quality with parents (father & mother) and peers. Children in the sexual abuse victims group (SA) exhibited lower quality parent (father & mother) and peer attachment relationships than children in the control group. It can be concluded from the results of this study that child sexual abuse is associated with problems in children’s emotional development, particularly increased insecurity of attachment.