Relationship between childhood sexual abuse and aggressivity among undergraduate students:mediating effect of resilience

Objective To explore the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and aggressivity and the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship among undergraduate students.Methods Cluster sampling was applied in this study and 999 college students were chosen from 3 universities in Liaoning province.Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-28 Item Short Form(CTQ-SF),Adolescent Resilience Scale,and Aggressivity Questionnaire were applied in this investigation.Results Among the participants,22.62% (226/999)reported experience of being sexually maltreated during their childhood and the male students had a significantly higher average score of childhood sexual abuse than the female students(1.744±0.894 vs.1.419±0.794,P<0.001).The students with childhood sexual abuse had significantly lower average overall score(3.20±0.45 vs.3.56±0.50) and domain scores for resilience and significantly higher average overall score (2.67±0.53 vs.2.27±0.56)and domain scores for agressivity compared with those without childhood sexual abuse(all P<0.001).Among the participants,childhood sexual abuse experience was reversely correlated to the total score and factor scores of psychological resilience and positively correlated to the total score and factor scores of aggressivity(all P<0.01).Childhood sexual abuse experience is a positive predictor of aggressivity during late adolescence(γ=0.38,critical ratio=10.01,P<0.001).Psychological resilience plays a partial mediating role in child abuse and aggressivity,explaining 42.08% of the total effect of the mediating effect.Conclusion Childhood sexual abuse could have a direct impact and an indirect impact through psychological resilience on aggressivity during late adolescence among college students.