Trauma Exposure and Sexual Revictimization Risk

Abstract

Although research demonstrates a link between child sexual abuse and sexual revictimization in adolescence or adulthood, less is known about specific mechanisms that increase women’s vulnerability to reassault. This study examined experiential and outcome differences between survivors of a single assault, survivors of ongoing abuse by a single perpetrator, and survivors of multiple assaults by different offenders. Multiply victimized women differed from survivors of a single assault or of ongoing abuse on psychological distress, health, and nonsexual trauma variables. Revictimization by new perpetrators was predicted by an earlier age during a first sexual assault and by nonsexual trauma in childhood.