Depression levels, suicide ideation and suicide attempts in child sexual abuse

Objective: This study investigated the depression levels, suicide ideation and suicide attempts of sexually abused children and adolescents, who were referred for forensic examination to our child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinic.

Method: Forensic reports of 110 children and adolescents aged 8-17 years, who had been referred to our child psychiatry outpatient clinic between January 2012 and January 2013 were examined retrospectively. Depression levels of children were evaluated by Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI).

Results: Of the cases, 79.1% (n=87) were female and 20.9% (n=23) were male. The mean age was 13.33±2.7 years. The psychiatric diagnosis rate was 79.2%. Post-traumatic stress disorder (41.8%) and depression (19.1%) were the most common psychiatric diagnosis established after sexual abuse. Mean CDI score was 17.32±8.8. According to the items of CDI asking about the suicide ideation; the rates of children answered ‘I do not think about killing myself’ item was 48.2% (n=53), ‘I think about killing myself but would not do it’ was 43.6% (n=48) and ‘I want to kill myself’ was 8.2% (n=9). 6 patients (5.5%) had attempted suicide after the sexual abuse. Forced vaginal or anal penetration, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and gender female significantly increased the risk of suicide attempts.

Conclusion: In our study, results indicated that depression levels, suicide ideation and suicide attempts increased in the sexual abused children. Descriptive data related to the abused children and an understanding of the consequences of sexual abused children will help authorities in planning prevention. Besides, the risk of suicide must be handled and interventions should be planned on this basis and great significance should be given to the treatment and rehabilitation of the cases.