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Puerto Rican and New England college students' reports of childhood sexual abuse and sexual experiences: A comparison study
Abstract
The aim of this study was to increase our knowledge about the prevalence and nature of childhood sexual abuse in Latino populations. Specifically, data was gathered for the following purposes: (1) to determine the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse and sexual experiences in a sample of Puerto Rican college students, (2) to identify risk factors associated with them, (3) to analyze the nature and degree of trauma reported by victims, and (4) to examine the differences between the Puerto Rican sample and a New England college student sample previously studied by Finkelhor (1979). Self-reports of childhood sexual experiences were obtained from 571 Puerto Rican undergraduate students (206 males and 365 female) at three institutions of higher education in Puerto Rico. The mean age of participants was 22.2 years. A Spanish translation of sections of a self-report questionnaire developed by Finkelhor (1979) was used to gather the information. Seventeen percent of male students and 17% of female students reported childhood sexual experiences that were classified as child sexual abuse on the same age discrepancy criteria used by Finkelhor (1979). No statistically significant differences were found between the percentage of female students (17%) who reported childhood sexual abuse experiences in this study and the percentage (19%) in the New England study (19%) by Finkelhor. A higher percentage of male participants (17%) in the present study reported childhood sexual abuse as compared to males (9%) in Finkelhor's original study. This represented a significant difference (X$\sp2$ = 8.27, p $<$.01) between males in the present study and Finkelhor's. Sexual abuse experiences occurred most often between 10 and 12 years of age for both sexes and in both studies. No differences were found between the students who reported childhood sexual abuse in this study and those who did not in terms of demographic and other family background characteristics. Twenty-one percent of the abusers were female and 79% were male. Thirty-eight percent of the childhood sexual abuse experiences reported by girls and 33% of those reported by boys were with family members. Females reported more negative reactions to the experiences and higher degrees of trauma than males.
Subject Area
Educational psychology|Ethnic studies|Individual & family studies
Recommended Citation
O'Neill, Margarita Rosa, "Puerto Rican and New England college students' reports of childhood sexual abuse and sexual experiences: A comparison study" (1990). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9110201.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9110201