Problem: State your thoughts and advice on the situations in the text below?
Identifying issues experienced by victims of child abuse comes in different outcomes. For some adults, the effects of child abuse and neglect are chronic and debilitating. While other adults have less adverse outcomes, despite their histories (Miller-Perrin & Perrin, 2007). Critical factors that may influence the way child abuse and neglect affects adults include the frequency and duration of maltreatment and if more than one type of maltreatment has occurred. Chronic maltreatment defined as "recurrent incidents of maltreatment over a prolonged period of time" (Bromfield & Higgins, 2005, p. 39) has been linked to worse outcomes than transitory or isolated incidents of maltreatment (e.g., Ethier, Lemelin, & Lacharite, 2004; Graham et al., 2010; Johnson-Reid, Kohl, & Drake, 2012).
Research suggests that maltreatment types are interrelated. A substantial proportion of adults who experience childhood abuse or neglect are exposed to more than one type of abuse (known as multi-type maltreatment). Further to this, other forms of victimization (known as poly-victimization) such as bullying or assault by a peer have often been found to co-occur with child maltreatment (Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Turner, 2007). Research indicates that those who experience multi-type maltreatment and/or poly-victimization are more likely to experience elevated levels of trauma symptoms and worse outcomes as adults than those who are exposed to no maltreatment or only one type (Finkelhor et al., 2007; Higgins & McCabe, 2001; Richmond, Elliot, Pierce, Aspelmeier, & Alexander, 2009).
Research suggests that adults, particularly women, who were victimized as children are at risk of re-victimization in later life (Cannon, Bonomi, Anderson, Rivara, & Thompson 2010; Mouzos & Makkai, 2004; Whiting, Simmons, Havens, Smith, & Oka, 2009; Widom, Czaja, & Dutton, 2008). Findings from the Australian component of the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) indicated that 72% of women who experienced either physical or sexual abuse as a child also experienced violence in adulthood, compared to 43% of women who did not experience childhood abuse (Mouzos & Makkai, 2004). Further to this, a review of approximately 90 sexual victimization studies found that over 30 studies had reported a link between child sexual assault and sexual re-victimization in adulthood (Classen, Gronskaya Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005).