Child Sexual Abuse in the Etiology of Anxiety Disorders: A Systematic Review of Reviews

There is considerable controversy about the role of child sexual abuse in the etiology of anxiety disorders. Although a growing number of research studies have been published, these have produced inconsistent results and conclusions regarding the nature of the associations between child sexual abuse and the various forms of anxiety problems as well as the potential effects of third variables, such as moderators, mediators, or confounders. This article provides a systematic review of the several reviews that have investigated the literature on the role of child sexual abuse in the etiology of anxiety disorders. Seven databases were searched, supplemented with hand search of reference lists from retrieved papers. Four meta-analyses, including 3,214,482 subjects from 171 studies, were analyzed. There is evidence that child sexual abuse is a significant, although general and nonspecific, risk factor for anxiety disorders, especially posttraumatic stress disorder, regardless of gender of the victim and severity of abuse. Additional biological or psychosocial risk factors (such as alterations in brain structure or function, information processing biases, parental anxiety disorders, family dysfunction, and other forms of child abuse) may interact with child sexual abuse or act independently to cause anxiety disorders in victims in abuse survivors. However, child sexual abuse may sometimes confer additional risk of developing anxiety disorders either as a distal and indirect cause or as a proximal and direct cause. Child sexual abuse should be considered one of the several risk factors for anxiety disorders and included in multifactorial etiological models for anxiety disorders.