Genitourinary Health of Sexually Abused Girls and Boys: A Matched-Cohort Study

Objective To compare genitourinary health problems of children and adolescents with a substantiated report of sexual abuse with those of the general pediatric population. Study design Via a prospective matched-cohort design, administrative databases between January 1996 and March 2013 were used to document genitourinary problems of 882 sexually abused children and those of 882 matched controls. Generalized linear mixed models determined the association between a substantiated sexual abuse and diagnoses for sexually transmitted infections and urinary and genital health problems. Results Adjusted results revealed that up to 12 years after a sexual abuse was substantiated, abused girls had, respectively, 2.1 and 1.4 times more diagnoses for urinary and genital health problems compared with girls from the general population, whereas no difference was found for sexually transmitted infections. Sexually abused boys had an equivalent number of diagnoses as those from the general population for all 3 outcomes. Depending on the genitourinary health problem, abused girls and those from the general population had between 2.5 and 11 times more diagnoses than abused boys or those from the general population. Conclusions This study showed that substantiated childhood sexual abuse is associated with more urinary and genital health problems among girls but not boys. Early prevention and intervention efforts may mitigate the problems such that they do not persist or worsen over time and into adulthood.