Promoting Resilience and Preventing Sexual Offenses in Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Systematic Review
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
St. Catherine University University of St. Thomas
Abstract
Maltreatment is often experienced in adverse environments during childhood. Children who
survive maltreatment demonstrate protective and risk factors that impact the developmental
pathway to lifelong outcomes. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the factors
that impact the pathway between surviving childhood sexual abuse and committing a sexual
offense. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse may possess protective factors that are important
towards their ability to function and have positive lifelong outcomes. For survivors of childhood
sexual abuse, it is important to identify the protective factors essential to positive lifelong
outcomes and resilience. Educating professionals on important protective factors for survivors
of childhood sexual abuse can improve screening tools and interventions. This would be to
provide effective treatment that supports the protective factors to decrease the likelihood of
lifelong negative outcomes. Without interventions and screening tools effectively supporting
protective factors, risk factors can overcome and impact the pathway to committing a sexual
offense. With this in mind, educating professionals on identifying the risk factors is important in
order to provide them on screening tools and in interventions for effective treatment. A
systematic review research design was used to analyze 19 articles that met inclusion criteria.
The articles were analyzed in the results section to identify the protective factors that survivors
of sexual abuse experience, and the risk factors that could potentially impact the pathway to an
outcome of committing a sexual offense. The discussion demonstrates assumptions in which
factors impact the pathway between surviving childhood sexual abuse and committing a sexual
offense. The need for future research is suggested to further understand the factors between the
pathway of surviving childhood sexual abuse and committing sexual offenses
Description
item.page.type
Article
item.page.format
Keywords
resilience, child maltreatment, outcomes, survivors, sexual abuse
Citation
DeGraw, C. (2018). Promoting Resilience and Preventing Sexual Offenses in Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Systematic Review.