The effects of child sexual abuse: Comment on Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998)

B. Rind, P. Tromovitch, and R. Bauserman (1998) examined the long-term effe cts of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) by meta-analyzing studies of college st udents. The authors reported that effects "were neither pervasive nor typic ally intense" and that "men reacted much less negatively than women" (p. 22 ) and recommended value-neutral reconceptualization of the CSA construct. T he current analysis revealed numerous problems in that study that minimized CSA-adjustment relations, including use of a healthy sample, an inclusive definition of CSA, failure to correct for statistical attenuation, and misr eporting of original data. Rind et al.'s study's main conclusions were not supported by the original data. As such, attempts to use their study to arg ue that an individual has not been harmed by sexual abuse constitute a seri ous misapplication of its findings.