The study reports the prevalence and correlates of sexual and physical abuse in a sample of 100 female inpatients with schizophrenia in South Korea. Clinical assessment interviews consisted of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms, an interview assessing history of sexual and repeated physical abuse, and demographic and psychosocial factors. Lifetime prevalence of severe sexual or physical abuse was 52%. Compared with nonabused patients (n = 48), the abused patients (n = 52) showed more nonpsychotic symptoms (i.e., anxiety, depression) and higher levels of distress, but no difference in psychotic symptoms. This study failed to note significant differences in positive symptoms addressed in previous Western studies.
Research suggests that the prevalence of sexual and physical abuse is especially high among women with severe mental illness (SMI). Overall lifetime exposure to sexual or physical abuse ranges from 43 to 81% across studies (Mueser, Rosenberg, Goodman, & Trumbetta, 2002). For instance, in a multicenter study of 321 women with SMI in mental health care, 68.2% reported sexual or physical abuse in their lifetime (Goodman et al., 2001). Mueser et al. (2004) found that of their 782 patients with SMI, 84.4% were exposed to physical assault and 51.5% to sexual assault in their lifetime. Women with SMI reported significantly more sexual assaults than men did, but experiences with physical assault did not differ between men and women.