Research has previously shown that women are significantly more likely than men to be exposed to childhood sexual abuse, and also to sexual assault as adults. The risk of anxiety and depression is also higher among women, but the relationship between the two has not been fully established.

Professor David Fergusson and colleagues from Christchurch School of Medicine investigated whether women who had experienced sexual violence were more likely to suffer internalizing disorders than those who had not.

A group of 1,265 individuals born in 1977 who had been studied since birth to age 21 were included in the study. Information regarding diagnoses of depression or anxiety, and sexual abuse or assault during childhood and adolescence, was recorded and analyzed.

The researchers found that women were more than twice as likely to suffer from internalizing disorders as men and were between five and eight times as likely to have experienced sexual violence either as a child or as an adolescent.

Although some of the increased risk of depression or anxiety could be explained by higher exposure to sexual violence, controlling for this did not fully explain the difference in prevalence of the conditions, and women were still at around twice the risk of internalizing disorders as men.

Writing in the journal Psychological Medicine, Prof Fergusson and colleagues conclude, “These results suggest that while exposure to sexual violence does not explain male/female differences in internalizing disorders, this exposure may exacerbate pre-existing gender differences in susceptibility to internalizing disorders.”

Reference: Fergusson et al, Psychological Medicine 2002; 32:991-996

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