THE LONG-TERM IMPACT OF CHILD-ABUSE ON RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR AND SPIRITUALITY IN MEN

Objective: Two hypotheses were tested: (1) In a sample of adult men, p ast experience of child abuse (sexual, physical, or emotional) will be related to higher levels of reported alienation from religion and God as shown in lower rates of current religious behavior, higher frequen cy of spiritual ''injury,'' and lower stability of religious behavior and experiences; (2) More ''severe'' forms of abuse will be associated with higher indicators of alienation. Method: Data were collected fro m 1,207 male veterans, 527 (43.7%) of whom reported bring abused as a child. Each subject completed the Spiritual Issues Assessment, a large survey which includes data about: (1) KASL Religiosity Index; (2) The Spiritual Injury Scale; and (3) Religious items from the Westberg Per sonal Health Inventory. Results: A history of sexual abuse was related to significantly greater spiritual injury and lower stability of spir itual behaviors and experiences, but not to overall rate of current re ligious behavior. Surprisingly, abuse was related to increased frequen cy of prayer and of ''spiritual experience.'' Multivariate analyses in dicate that the effect size is relatively small and the type of abuse was less important than the presence of any form of abuse. Conclusions : The findings suggest that the impact of childhood abuse is more comp lex than initially hypothesized. While abuse seems to be related to co ntinuing spiritual injury and distress, it is also related to higher l evels of some spiritual activities and experiences which are usually a ssociated with positive spirituality. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.