PII S0145-2134(99)00041-1 A COMPARISON OF PSYCHOLOGICAL/PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF WOMEN AND MEN SEXUALLY ABUSED AS CHILDREN STEVEN N. GOLD,BARBARA A. LUCENKO,JON D. ELHAI,JANINE M. SWINGLE, AND ALFRED H. SELLERS Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in symptomatology among sexual abuse survivors utilizing a standardized measure of specific symptom patterns, the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Method: Gender differences in symptomatology of adults sexually victimized as children were examined. Participants were 162 women and 25 men entering an outpatient treatment program for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a university-based community mental health center. Symptomatology was measured using the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Results: Although no differences appeared when examining the raw data, the results changed dramatically once the data were converted into T-scores and epidemiological SCL-90-R gender differences were taken into account. The findings indicate that men exhibited significantly more interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and phobic anxiety than women in relation to their respective normative samples. Conclusions: The use of nonclinical T-scores in this study allows for the interpretation that men survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have higher levels of symptomatology than women survivors when compared to their respective normative samples. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Key Words—Child abuse, Sexual abuse, Gender, SCL-90-R. MOST RESEARCH ON childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has focused on women survivors in psychotherapy. One reason for this is that men CSA survivors tend to be underrepresented, and possibly under-identified, in the clinical population (Urquiza & Keating, 1990; Violato & Genius, 1993). Also, several studies utilizing standardized measures which report on men have failed to include a sufficient number of men to perform gender comparisons (Braver, Bumberry, Green, & Rawson, 1992; Silverman, Reinherz, & Giaconia, 1996). Holmes and Offen (1996) suggested that clinicians may be biased toward hypothesizing that women clients were sexually abused in childhood, which if true may account for some of the difference identified in prevalence, at least in clinical settings. Consequently, most of the findings and implications for treatment in the literature are aimed at women survivors of CSA and cannot be confidently generalized to men survivors (Hepburn, 1994). However, recent literature suggests that CSA may also have a negative The study reported in this manuscript was presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy in Miami Beach, Florida. Submitted for publication June 1, 1998, final revision received December 22, 1998, accepted December 26, 1998. Requests for reprints should be sent to Steven N. Gold, Nova Southeastern University, 3301 College Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33314. Pergamon Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 23, No. 7, pp. 683– 692, 1999 Copyright © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0145-2134/99/$–see front matter 683