Selected symptoms associated with sexual and physical abuse history among female patients with gastrointestinal disorders: the impact on subsequent health care visits
Abstract
Background Despite a growing literature pointing to the deleterious health effects of sexual and physical abuse history, few studies provide evidence about which medical symptoms are most affected. The aim of this paper is to determine the impact of sexual and physical abuse history on a selected set of medical symptoms, and to test how such abuse, medical symptoms and functional disability may affect subsequent health care visits. Methods We studied 239 women from a referral-based gastroenterology clinic; follow-up data were available on 196 of these women. All women were interviewed about sexual and physical abuse history. Results Women with abuse history, particularly those with severe abuse, were much more likely to report somatic symptoms related to panic (e.g. palpitations, numbness, shortness of breath), depression (e.g. difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite), musculoskeletal disorders (e.g. headaches, muscle aches), genito-urinary disorders (e.g. vaginal discharge, pelvic pain, painful intercourse), skin disturbance (e.g. rash) and respiratory illness (e.g. stuffy nose). Furthermore, we found that the severity of abuse history, somatic symptoms and functional disability predicted 30% of the variance in health care visits during the subsequent year, and that the effect of abuse severity on visits was explained by abused women having more somatic symptoms and functional disability. Conclusions Patients' reports of abuse history, somatic symptoms and functional disabilit…
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Visits driven by somatic or medically unexplained symptoms are known to drive a high proportion of primary care visits, to be difficult to treat biomedically and to frequently be associated with a history of abuse or trauma.
“Visits driven by somatic or medically unexplained symptoms are known to drive a high proportion of primary care visits, to be difficult to treat biomedically and to frequently be associated with a history of abuse or trauma [2,65,66].”
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“frequently be associated with a history of abuse or trauma [2,65,66].”
Background
- Authors
- LESERMAN, J., LI, Z., DROSSMAN, D. A., & HU, Y. J. B.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Medicine
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1998-03
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 417-425
- ISSN
- 0033-2917 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-8978
- OpenAlex
- W2001883997
- Cited by
- 216
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 9.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01mh046959-04)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH46959)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Keywords
- child sexual abuse, physical abuse, abuse history, somatic symptoms, functional disability, gastrointestinal diseases, women, health care utilization, panic symptoms, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, genitourinary diseases, abuse severity
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Analysis of Variance, Child, Child Abuse, Factor Analysis, Statistical, Female, Gastrointestinal Diseases, Health Services, Health Status, Humans, Middle Aged, North Carolina, Prospective Studies, Rape, Regression Analysis, Retrospective Studies, Violence, Trauma Severity Indices, Confidence Intervals, Odds Ratio, Women's Health, Sickness Impact Profile, Crime Victims
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