Parental sociopathy as a predictor of childhood sexual abuse

Research on childhood sexual abuse has often examined, in isolation of one another; such highly correlated risk factors as parental substance abuse, d omestic violence, and pathological family functioning. Investigating comorb id antecedents separately does not allow accurate specification of the pred ictors of abuse. Moreover sexual trauma research has tended to neglect pare ntal sociopathy as a risk factor Given the limitations of past research, th e present study examined the relationships among parental sociopathy, paren tal substance use, marital violence, poor family functioning and childhood sexual abuse. We administered a battery of questionnaires to a nonclinical sample of 130 college women and replicated previous findings by showing tha t parental substance use predicted sexual abuse when examined in isolation. However when parental sociopathy and the other risk factors were included in a regression model, parental sociopathy was the only significant predict or. Mother's and father's sociopathy predicted sexual abuse independently a nd when combined.