Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 188(7) 2000 : 440-445

In this article the author reports on a study, which investigated the prevalence of sexual and physical abuse, during childhood and adulthood, experienced by chronically ill psychiatric outpatients, compared with a control sample of medical outpatients in Auckland, New Zealand. People who experience schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe anxiety disorders and other mental illnesses that are deemed as major mental illnesses participated; excluded from the study were clients with a diagnosis of mental retardation or alcohol or substance misuse. One hundred and fifty-eight psychiatric outpatients responded to semi-structured interviews. They were matched for gender, age, and ethnicity with 158 medical outpatients who had never been treated for experiencing a mental illness. The response rate was 64.8%. Participants were questioned about the number of times they were abused; the type of abuse; how many different people abused them; and who abused them, for example, a blood relative, partner, or someone outside of the family. Results from the study identify that the psychiatric participants reported experiencing more physical or sexual abuse during adulthood than did the control group. Participants who reported experiencing abuse as adults were also more likely to have experienced abuse during childhood. The discussion explores a number of limitations of the study, including recall bias, and looks at the findings drawing possible conclusions as to reporting differences for the two participant groups in the study. The article concludes that the findings from the study help to identify that psychiatrically unwell outpatients are vulnerable to abuse.