CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 273Child Abuse and TraumaMilitary, Security, and Education StudiesIntimate Partner and Family Violence

Why, when and how to ask about childhood abuse

Open access
Read, John, Hammersley, Paul, Rudegeair, Thom·2007·Advances in Psychiatric Treatment
DOI 10.1192/apt.bp.106.002840
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Subscribers to the medical model of the causation of madness and distress emphasise the role of genes and can severely underestimate the impact of traumatic events on the development of the human mind. This bias persists despite the worldwide popular wisdom that mental illness arises when bad things happen to people. Childhood physical and sexual abuse and neglect are extremely common experiences among those who develop serious mental health problems. Unfortunately, victims are typically reluctant to disclose their histories of abuse and practitioners are often reluctant to seek it. We explore the nature and extent of the problem and the apparent reasons for the pervasive neglect of this important area of care. Then, on the basis of our experience in New Zealand, we provide guidelines on asking patients about childhood abuse and describe an ongoing initiative in the UK to further advance our understanding of the impact of abuse and our skills to detect it and treat survivors.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1192/apt.bp.106.002840

Cites

71 of 71 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Trauma exposure and re-traumatization are often not recognized in acute mental health inpatient settings.

    “Re- traumatization amongst people accessing mental healthcare has been receiving growing attention in research but despite this, trauma exposure and re- traumatization are often not recognized in acute mental health inpatient settings (Chambers et al., 2014 ; Duckworth & Follette, 2012 ; Read et al., 2007 ).”

    From A qualitative synthesis of patients' experiences of re-traumatization in acute mental health inpatient settings (2023) · cites this paper as Read et al., 2007

    The ‘Asking’ section (page unavailable) reports that clinicians identified fewer than half of the abuse histories reported to researchers in US and UK inpatient studies, supporting the point that prior trauma exposure often goes unrecognized. It does not establish that re-traumatization in acute inpatient settings is often unrecognized. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • People in contact with mental health services who have experienced childhood trauma have longer and more frequent hospital admissions.

    “People in contact with mental health services who have experienced childhood trauma have longer and more frequent hospital admissions, are prescribed more medication, and are more likely to self- harm and attempt suicide (Kessler et al., 2010 ;”

    From A qualitative synthesis of patients' experiences of re-traumatization in acute mental health inpatient settings (2023) · cites this paper as Read et al., 2007

  • People in contact with mental health services who have experienced childhood trauma are more likely to self-harm and attempt suicide.

    “People in contact with mental health services who have experienced childhood trauma have longer and more frequent hospital admissions, are prescribed more medication, and are more likely to self- harm and attempt suicide (Kessler et al., 2010 ;”

    From A qualitative synthesis of patients' experiences of re-traumatization in acute mental health inpatient settings (2023) · cites this paper as Read et al., 2007

  • People in contact with mental health services who have experienced childhood trauma are prescribed more medication.

    “People in contact with mental health services who have experienced childhood trauma have longer and more frequent hospital admissions, are prescribed more medication, and are more likely to self- harm and attempt suicide (Kessler et al., 2010 ;”

    From A qualitative synthesis of patients' experiences of re-traumatization in acute mental health inpatient settings (2023) · cites this paper as Read et al., 2007

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 72 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Agar, K., Read, J. & Bush, J.-M. (2002) Identification of abuse histories in a community mental health centre. Journal of Mental Health, 11, 533-543.
  2. Boney-McCoy, S. & Finkelhor, D. (1996) Is youth victimization related to trauma symptoms and depression after controlling for prior symptoms and family relationships? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 1406-1416.
  3. Fowler, D. (2000) Psychological formulation of early episodes of psychosis. In Early Interventions in Psychosis (eds M. Birchwood, D. Fowler & C. Jackson). Wiley.
  4. Read, J. (2006) Breaking the silence: learning why, when and how to ask about trauma, and how to respond. In Trauma and Psychosis: New Directions for Theory and Therapy (eds W. Larkin & A. P. Morrison), pp. 195-221.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Read, J., Hammersley, P., & Rudegeair, T.
Affiliations
University of Auckland (NZ)
Corresponding author
Read, John
ORCID
Read, John
Venue
Advances in Psychiatric Treatment
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2007-03
Volume
13
Issue
2
Pages
101-110
ISSN
  • 1355-5146 (ISSN-L)
  • 1472-1481
DOI
10.1192/apt.bp.106.002840
OpenAlex
W2124764442
Cited by
273
References
72
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 12
FWCI
12.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 3960 d)
Locations
  • Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (publishedVersion)
  • Swinburne figshare (Swinburne University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
  • ResearchSpace (University of Auckland) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Military, Security, and Education Studies
  • Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
Keywords
childhood abuse, child neglect, child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, trauma, mental illness, medical model of mental illness, genetic determinism, trauma-informed care, abuse detection, clinical guidelines

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review