Outcomes of sexual abuse on self-esteem among adolescents: A systematic review

Abstract

The burden of sexual abuse remains a global reality and it is known to affect adolescents’ psycho-social well-being. The current study aimed at determining the unanimity findings on the relationship between sexual abuse and self-esteem among adolescents as well as the concomitant determinants of self-esteem among sexually abused adolescents. To achieve this, a systematic search of PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane, African Journals Online (AJOL) and Google Scholar was conducted to identify studies that focused on the outcomes of sexual abuse on the self-esteem of adolescents. Based on this, a simple synthesis of basic findings of the selected studies was conducted. A total of 7,278 studies were identified out of which only eight studies from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America met the selection criteria. With three research questions guiding the study, findings reveal that sexual abuse is prevalent among the study participants. It also revealed an inverse relationship between sexual abuse and self-esteem among he adolescents. Furthermore, three categories of co-determinants of self-esteem among sexually abused adolescents were observed namely socio-demographic determinants; parental and family determinants as well as nature of abuse. The overriding deduction from these studies is that sexual abuse impacts negatively on the self-esteem of adolescents. These findings have implications for Sustainable Development Goals. Since this study has established that sexual abuse impacts negatively on the self-esteem of adolescents, drivers of SGD 3 should, among other things, intensify campaigns against adolescents’ sexual abuse and make psychological intervention by counselling psychologists, available to victims.

Keywords

• sexual abuse
• self-esteem
• adolescent
• relationship
• systematic review