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According to a new study, a history of sexual assault or sexual harassment at work can have a major effect on the mental and physical health of a middle-aged woman.
Victims of sexual assault suffer from high rates of depression, anxiety and insomnia; Victims of harassment have high rates of hypertension and loss of sleep, according to a study released Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study, which will also be presented at a medical meeting this week, comes at a time when many middle-aged women across the country are sharing stories of abuse and harassment sometimes several decades old.
Notably, Christine Blasey Ford, a 51-year-old California psychology professor, told a hearing in the US Senate last week that she had been sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court candidate. in adolescence – and that she was still suffering from anxiety, post-traumatic trauma. stress and phobias as a result. Kavanaugh denied the allegation.
The new study is not the first nor the largest to associate sexual assault and harassment with mental and physical health issues. But this could have extra weight because the women in the study were directly examined by researchers and formally assessed their mental health. Some previous studies were based on surveys.
The researchers did not know that their study would be published at a time when assaults and harassment are making headlines, but the timeline "simply highlights the importance of these issues and the need for a national dialogue on prevention." and the intervention, "said the author of the study. Rebecca Thurston, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh.
The study included 304 women aged 40 to 60 years, originally enrolled in a study on the symptoms of menopause. When asked if they had ever been victims of sexual harassment at work, verbally or physically, 19% said "yes". When asked if they had ever been forced or pressured into unwanted sexual contact involving "private parties", 22% said "yes." "
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Here is how these women differ from those in the study who reported no harassment or aggression:
• Women who reported being abused were almost three times more likely to have symptoms of major depression and twice as likely to experience anxiety.
• Women who reported being harassed were twice as likely to suffer from untreated high blood pressure.
• Both categories of women were twice as likely to have difficulty sleeping.
These problems are common in midlife women. The study shows that they are even more common among women experiencing harassment or assault – although they can not prove that the incidents caused the health problems. In addition, the study does not indicate whether the incidents were ongoing, recent or distant, nor whether there were single or repeated events.
The study has other limitations. This did not include smokers, who had more mental and physical health problems, or women taking certain medications for depression and anxiety. If this had been the case, the number of people reporting assault and harassment and the associated health problems would likely have been higher, Thurston said.
But the findings convincingly demonstrate that health care providers who consult women in mid-life should ask them about aggression, harassment and other traumas, especially when women have health problems such as discovered in the study, said JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of The The. North American menopausal society. The company is organizing the meeting where Thurston will speak on Friday.
"These are often events from a long time ago, but they are of clinical importance at the present time," said Pinkerton, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the health care system. 39, University of Virginia.
Ideally, she said, doctors will be ready to refer traumatized women to mental health professionals and others who can help.
Thurston said, "What we need now is a significant cultural shift in women's receptivity to denouncing these issues and taking them seriously."
Copyright 2017 USATODAY.com
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