Worse Cardio, Mental Health in Sexual Harassment, Victims of Aggression

A prospective cohort study found that middle-aged women were more likely to have mental and physical health issues.

Sexually abused women were nearly three times more likely to have depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR] 2.86, 95% CI 1.42-5.77, P= 0.003) and more than twice as likely to have high anxiety (OR 2.26, 95% CI 1.26-4.06, P= 0.006), while those who experienced sexual harassment in the workplace were twice as likely to develop hypertension (OR 2.36, 95% CI 1.10-5.06, P= 0.03), reported Rebecca Thurston, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.

Poor sleep corresponding to clinical insomnia was more likely in sexually abused (OR 2.15, 95% CI 1.23-3.77, P= 0.007) and harassed group (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.05-3.42, P= 0.03), the authors wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Associations persisted after adjustment for age, race / ethnicity, education and body mass index, as well as for the use of antidepressants, anti-cancer drugs Anxiety and sleeping pills for mental health and sleep patterns.

"As a field, we really play a catch-up game when it comes to understanding those experiences that really hurt women," Thurston said. MedPage today. "These experiences are so much more common than we have understood, at least in popular culture, and to understand the important factors that affect the experiences, the daily lives and the health of women, we need to study these things."

It is estimated that 40% to 75% of women have been victims of sexual harassment and that more than one in three women have been victims of sexual assault, according to background information provided in the study. In previous research, experiences of sexual misconduct have been associated with poor physical and mental health, although in these cases health data have been self-reported and therefore subject to bias.

This study aimed to measure observable differences in women's health in order to provide a more quantitative and accurate account of these associations, explained the authors. Since hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and depression and anxiety are twice as common in women, it was particularly important to study associations between these factors and sexual misconduct, they said. .

Sudeepta Varma, MD, of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, said MedPage today that with the high frequency of incidents of sexual harassment and aggression, these problems should be treated as a public health problem. She said the data would be useful in providing mentorship and advice to women and creating safer work environments in the future.

"When it is linked to objective measures of health morbidity and mortality, you are dealing with concrete and undeniable associations," she said. "Just as we have adverse events and outcomes in childhood that have a serious and lasting impact, harassment and assault must be considered as such."

The women's group in the Pittsburgh area was aged 40 to 60 years (mean age 54) and was originally selected for a study on menopausal hot flushes and cardiovascular health, which revealed a link between more frequent hot flashes and greater thickness of the carotid media.

Patients were excluded due to a number of factors that may affect menopausal symptoms or cardiovascular health, such as smoking, being pregnant, or taking a number of medications such as selective blood pressure modulators. estrogen receptors or serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Of the 304 women qualified for this study, 22% reported having been sexually assaulted and 19% reported experiencing sexual harassment at work on the brief trauma questionnaire, which included two yes or no. questions:

• "Have you ever been a victim of physical or verbal sexual harassment at work?"
• "Have you ever been forced or forced to have a type of unwanted sexual contact?"

Those with a history of sexual harassment tended to be younger and more financially stressed.

Depressive symptoms were assessed with the help of the Depression Scale Center for Epidemiological Studies, Anxiety Using the Inventory 's. Anxiety Trait Spielberger and the quality of sleep with the help of Pittsburgh's sleep quality index.

Thurston said that future reports should more fully measure the severity of these events through an interview or in-depth interview, in order to better interpret these associations. Understanding when the incident occurred and how a woman can define sexual harassment, for example, will be crucial to developing interventions, she said.

"What happens when women go ahead and recount their experiences?" she says. "If there is an intervention, whether it is an intervention in mental health or a policy change, what does it mean?" for mental health? "

The Thurston group reported several limitations to the study, including the self-reported nature of the assaults, which could lead to bias. In addition, the disproportionate number of racial / ethnic minority women interviewed limits the generalizability (72% were Caucasian). Finally, the study was unable to determine the causal link or to associate the timing of these exposures with the increases in the variables examined.

2018-10-03T17: 45: 00-0400