MEASURING ABUSE STRESS AND NEGATIVE COGNITIVE APPRAISALS IN CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE - VALIDITY DATA ON 2 NEW SCALES

The validity of two measures assessing degree of stress associated wit h child sexual abuse was examined in a sample of 48 girls who had been sexually abused. The Checklist of Sexual Abuse and Related Stressors (C-SARS) assessed negative life events that were part of or were relat ed to the abuse, and the Negative Appraisals of Sexual Abuse Scale (NA S4S) assessed negative cognitive appraisals of threat, harm, or loss a ssociated with the abuse. Total scores for victim reports of bath stre ssful events and negative appraisals were positively and significantly related to two other measures of abuse severity: therapist ratings of abuse stress and the number of types of sexual abuse reported. Stress ful event scores were also related to aggressive behavior problems, se xual concerns, and total symptom scores on the Child Behavior Checklis t. Negative cognitive appraisal scores were related to victims' self-r eports of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress symptoms, and to parent reports of child depression and total symptoms. Regression a nalyses indicated that there were significant effects of negative appr aisals on internalizing symptoms when controlling for the level of str essful events experienced. The results suggest that negative life even ts and negative appraisals associated with sexual abuse are valid cons tructs that help account for variability in mental health outcomes amo ng child victims. The implications of these results and fixture resear ch directions in examining variable outcomes among sexual abuse victim s are discussed.