Childhood sexual abuse and non-suicidal self-injury: meta-analysis

Background Many theorists posit that childhood sexual abuse has a central role in the aetiology of self-injurious behaviour. Studies that report statistically significant associations between a history of such abuse and self-injury are cited to support this view. Aims A meta-analysis was conducted to determine systematically the magnitude of the association between childhood sexual abuse and self-injurious behaviour. Method Forty-five analyses of the association were identified. Effect sizes were converted to a standard metric and aggregated. Results The relationship between childhood sexual abuse and self-injurious behaviour is relatively small (mean weighted aggregate phi=0.23). This figure may be inflated owing to publication bias. in studies that statistically controlled for psychiatric risk factors, childhood sexual abuse explained little or no unique variance in self-injurious behaviour. Conclusions Theories that childhood sexual abuse has a central or causal role in the development of self-injurious behaviour are not supported by the available empirical evidence. instead, it appears that the two are modestly related because they are correlated with the same psychiatric risk factors. Declaration of interest None.