The experience of those who have been exposed to child sexual abuse is conceptualized
as a stressful event and, consequently, encompasses the use of different coping strategies.
That is, cognitive and behavioral efforts aimed at minimizing and modifying the way the
individual responds to circumstances. This study aimed to identify and discuss the use of
coping by victims of child sexual abuse. For this, a scope review was performed in the
databases of PubMed, PsycINFO and SciELO, selecting 30 articles at the end. In view of
the results, people who were sexually abused in childhood developed predominantly
unadaptive coping patterns, including increased avoidance, dissociative, avoidant and
self-harming symptoms, alcohol use and multiple substances and risky sexual behaviors.
However, although in a smaller comparison, they also allowed the development of
adaptive coping strategies, such as resilience, religiosity, trust dialogue with health
professionals, and support from the network.
|
