POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDERS INFLUENCE ON SEXUALLY ABUSED ADOLESCENTS’ EMOTIONAL STABILITY – A CASE OF RESCUE CENTERS IN NAKURU COUNTY, KENYA

Enos B. Mukadi, Oketch A. Evelyne

Abstract


Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) is increasingly viewed as a potentially serious disorder among sexually abused adolescents, not only because of the intense suffering it wreaks on young people, but also because of its adverse effect on biological, psychological, and social development of the adolescence. One of the things that could influence the severity of PTSD is coping. Adolescents are not an easy target-group as far as emotional stability is at stake, in any case. When life – marking events are taking place, such as loss (relocation, divorce, second marriage of the parent(s) and [ultimate loss] death) things are very likely to turn too complicated. The accessible population of the study was the 3 rescue centers that house the sexually abused adolescents, with a total population of 120 sexually abused adolescents and 12 caregivers. The sample size composed of all the 120 sexually abused adolescents and 12 caregivers. They were purposively sampled because they have the required information with respect to the objective under study. The instrument for data collection was an Interview Schedule for caregivers; a Modified Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale for sexually abused adolescents and brief Cope Scale for the sexually abused adolescents which displayed internal consistency with Cronbach Alpha reported for PTSD at 0.91. The data collected was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0. Findings of the study indicated high prevalence of PTSD among sexually abused adolescents.

 

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Keywords


acute stress disorder, child sexual abuse, rape, emotions, trauma syndrome, avoidant behavior and autonomic hyper-arousal

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v7i8.3214

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