Psychological Interventions in Children with Sexual Abuse History: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Psychological Interventions in Children with Sexual Abuse History: A Comprehensive Literature Review
Zohreh Shahhosseini,¹ Zeinab Hamzehgardeshi,² Elahe Samami,^3,*
1. Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, Sexual and Reproductive Health Research Center. Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Sari, Iran.
2. Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, Sexual and Reproductive Health Research Center. Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Sari, Iran.
3. Student of Midwifery counseling. Student Research committee. Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Sari, Iran.
Introduction: Sexual abuse is one of the most common abuses among children while they are the most sensitive group in a society. The Prevalence of child sexual abuse was mentioned about 34% and 8-15% in the world and Iran. Various interventions have been done in children with sexual abuse history; therefore this study aims to review on the effect of psychological interventions in children with sexual abuse history.
Methods: This is a review article. The author applied Google Scholar, especially Persian databases such as SID and Magiran and English databases such as Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science and Science Direct by keywords as child neglect, child sexual abuse, sexual abuse and psychological interventions in MeSH, in addition to the searched articles referred to years 2002 - 2017. From the 2,851 articles that were obtained using the search strategies, 2397 studies were retained after the duplicates and 311 studies were removed after the irrelevant. After the abstracts of the articles were reviewed, 102 studies were excluded, while 10 studies were excluded after the full text was examined. Finally, 31 studies were selected to write this review study.
Results: The psychological interventions in children with sexual abuse history included cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapy, supportive group therapy, coping skills training, problem solving and stress management. Reviewing the studies indicated that cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness, among the mentioned psychological interventions, were the most conducted interventions in children with sexual abuse history. In addition too, the papers indicated that all conducted psychological interventions improved and decreased psychological symptoms, especially stress, anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder, in children with sexual abuse history.
Conclusion: According to the findings of psychological interventions effect on improving and decreasing psychological symptoms, it is suggested use the psychological interventions conducting by health service providers in order to sexual abuse and improve the quality of life among children.
Keywords: sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, child neglect, psychological interventions