Apoyo social percibido en víctimas de abuso sexual infantiluna revisión meta-analítica

Resumo

Objective: The literature has postulated and studied the protective effect of social supporttowards the development of clinical sequelae in victims of child sexual abuse.Nevertheless, the true level of social support perceived and the epidemiology wereunknown. Thus, a meta-analytic review was designed in order to study the social supportperceived by victims of child sexual abuse, quantify the decline and estimate theepidemiology of child sexual abuse. Method: A total of 11 primary studies were found,obtaining 18 effect sizes, and a sample accumulated of 2.250 victims of child sexualabuse. Random-effects meta-analyses correcting the effect size for sampling error and theunreliability criterion were performed. Results: The results showed a negative averageeffect size (victim population perceived less social support), significant, generalisable,and of moderate magnitude (d = -0.50); quantifying the average loss in perceived socialsupport in the population of sexual abuse victims at 28.7%. Epidemiologically, 40% ofvictims did not reach the minimum level among non-victims and 27% had this protectivefactor. Conclusions: Implications of the results for vulnerability and protection topromote perceived social support are discussed and future research lines are proposed.