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Physical and Mental Health of Sexually Abused Boys: a 5 Year Matched-Control and Cohort Study

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Abstract

The goal of the current study was to explore the rates of medical consultation and hospitalizations of sexually abused boys. Specifically, to examine if sexually abused boys had higher rates of medical consultations and hospitalizations for physical and mental health problems than boys from the general population. Administrative databases were used to compare medical diagnoses of 222 boys with a substantiated sexual abuse report with those of 222 matched-controls. Results revealed that sexually abused boys were up to five times more likely than those from the general population to consult a physician for mental health problems. With regards to physical health problems, sexually abused boys were as likely as those from the general population to consult a physician, but up to 10 times more likely to be hospitalized.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Denis Lacerte from the Centre jeunesse de Québec for his assistance with administrative databases. This study was made possible with financial support from the Ministry of Justice’s Fonds d’aide aux victimes d’actes criminels (FAVAC), from the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les problèmes conjugaux et l’agression sexuelle (CRIPCAS) and the Équipe violence sexuelle et santé (ÉVISSA). This study was funded by three grants to the first author: one from Quebec’s ministry of Justice (no. 126489), a second via a partnership grant from the Fonds de recherche Québecois – société et culture (no. 2015-RG-178804), and a third via a team grant from the Fonds de recherche Québecois – société et culture (no. 2012-SE-144392).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Université de Montréal, 90 Avenue Vincent d’Indy, Montréal, QC, H2V 2S9, Canada

    Isabelle Daigneault, Catherine Bourgeois, Pascale Vézina-Gagnon, Alexane Alie-Poirier & Sonia Dargan

  2. Sexology Department, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Martine Hébert

  3. Pediatric Department, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Jean-Yves Frappier

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  1. Isabelle Daigneault
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  2. Catherine Bourgeois
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  3. Pascale Vézina-Gagnon
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  4. Alexane Alie-Poirier
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  5. Sonia Dargan
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  6. Martine Hébert
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  7. Jean-Yves Frappier
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Correspondence to Isabelle Daigneault.

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Conflict of Interest

Isabelle Daigneault, Catherine Bourgeois, Pascale Vézina-Gagnon, Alexane Alie-Poirier, Sonia Dargan, Martine Hébert and Jean-Yves Frappier declare that they have no conflicts to report.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation with Canadian (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada & Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada 2014), and American ethical standards (IRB00004218, FWA00013911), and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Data used in this study were taken from existing administrative databanks, thus informed consent was not obtained from individual participants.

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Daigneault, I., Bourgeois, C., Vézina-Gagnon, P. et al. Physical and Mental Health of Sexually Abused Boys: a 5 Year Matched-Control and Cohort Study. Journ Child Adol Trauma 10, 9–17 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-016-0120-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-016-0120-1

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