Lw. Johnsen et Ll. Harlow, CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE LINKED WITH ADULT SUBSTANCE USE, VICTIMIZATION, AND AIDS-RISK, AIDS education and prevention, 8(1), 1996, pp. 44-57
College women who report childhood sexual abuse were compared with wom
en who do not report abuse on a number of variables concerned with pro
blems in living. Multivariate Analysis of Variance revealed that, comp
ared with nonabused women, sexually abused women reported significantl
y more negative attitudes about sexuality, less sexual assertiveness a
bout birth control or refusing unwanted sex, less efficacy concerning
HIV prevention, more anticipation of a negative response from a partne
r concerning safer sex, more hard-substance use, and more sexual victi
mization in adulthood. These results support and extend previous work
in this area and argue for greater attention to relational issues for
interventions with sexually abused women. Limitations to the study and
future directions for research are discussed.