OBJECTIVE: To assess the potential role of childhood and adulthood
physical and sexual abuse and complaints of chronic pain in accounting
for psychiatric symptomatology in adult women. METHODS: We assessed
sexual abuse, physical abuse, depression, anxiety, and somatization in
64 women with chronic pelvic pain, 42 women with chronic headache, and
46 women without chronic pain complaints. Using multiple regression
analyses, we tested a model comprising sociodemographic, chronic pain,
childhood sexual abuse and physical abuse, and adulthood sexual abuse
and physical abuse variables in the prediction of depression, anxiety
and somatization. RESULTS: This model significantly predicted all
three outcomes. However, childhood sexual abuse was not significant in
the prediction of any of the outcome variables, whereas childhood
physical abuse was significant in the prediction of all
three. Further, the adulthood abuse variable set contributed
significantly to the prediction of somatization, and the individual
variable of adulthood sexual abuse was predictive of
anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The relation observed between childhood sexual
abuse and the outcomes of depression, anxiety, and somatization in
women may be a function of its association with other forms of abuse,
particularly childhood physical abuse. Further investigation is
clearly needed of the nature of the relations between the various
categories of abuse and psychological morbidity.