Childhood sexual experiences with adults. A comparison of reports by women psychiatric patients and general-practice attenders

Reports of childhood sexual experiences with adults were collected from 120 women attending general-practice surgeries and 115 women psychiatric patients. The method of study, research team and county of residence were the same for the two groups. The psychiatric patients tended to report rates of events higher than the general-practice attenders by a factor of 2-3. The results suggest an association between such experiences and later psychiatric patienthood and are compatible with a causal role for them in some cases.