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An observational study of Internet behaviours for adolescent females following sexual abuse

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 74–87 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with revictimization and sexual risk-taking behaviours. The Internet has increased the opportunities for teens to access sexually explicit imagery and has provided new avenues for victimization and exploitation. Online URL activity and offline psychosocial factors were assessed for 460 females aged 12–16 (CSA = 156; comparisons = 304) with sexual behaviours and Internet-initiated victimization assessed 2 years later. Females who experienced CSA did not use more pornography than comparisons but were at increased odds of being cyberbullied (odds ratio = 2.84, 95% confidence interval = 1.67–4.81). These females were also more likely to be represented in a high-risk latent profile characterized by heightened URL activity coupled with problematic psychosocial factors, which showed increased odds of being cyberbullied, receiving online sexual solicitations and heightened sexual activity. While Internet activity alone may not confer risk, results indicate a subset of teens who have experienced CSA for whom both online and offline factors contribute to problematic outcomes.

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Fig. 1: Sample and procedures flow.
Fig. 2: Venn diagram of the various online URL activities occurring within authenticated sessions.
Fig. 3: Unadjusted standardized means and bootstrapped s.e. for all variables used in the LPA for the three resultant profiles.
Fig. 4: Forest plots of the results from the logistic and multinomial logistic regression models.

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Data availability

The data reported in the current article are not publicly available because they contain extremely sensitive information that could compromise research participant privacy and confidentiality. We cannot provide individual-level data from this project due to limits to our confidentiality agreement with participants. Data are available upon request from J.G.N. by qualified scientists. Requests require a concept paper describing the purpose of data access, ethical approval at the applicant’s university in writing and provision for secure data access.

Code availability

The data analysis script is available from A.C.H. upon request.

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Acknowledgements

J.G.N., M.Kouril and C.E.S. acknowledge support from a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grant no. R01HD052533). J.G.N. and C.E.S. acknowledge support from a grant from the NIH (grant no. P50HD089922). The research was also supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (grant no. UL1TR001425). M.M. acknowledges support from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NIH (grant no. 2KL2TR001446-06A1) and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (grant no. PRG-0-104-19). We thank J. D. Long, S. Lanza and J. Buchheim for their statistical advice.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jennie G. Noll, Ann-Christin Haag.

  2. These authors jointly supervised this work: Michal Kouril, George A. Bonanno.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Jennie G. Noll & Chad E. Shenk

  2. College of Medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Jennie G. Noll, Jaclyn E. Barnes, Mojtaba Kohram & Michal Kouril

  3. Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Columbia University Teachers College, New York, NY, USA

    Ann-Christin Haag & George A. Bonanno

  4. College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, PA, USA

    Chad E. Shenk

  5. College of Liberal Arts, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Michelle F. Wright

  6. Department of Psychiatry, New York University, Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Matteo Malgaroli

  7. College of Information Systems & Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    David J. Foley

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Contributions

J.G.N. was the principal investigator of the study, was involved in conceiving and designing the study, participated in data acquisition, directed the analysis and interpretation of the findings, produced the manuscript drafts and revisions and provided final approval of the manuscript. A.C.H. was involved in conceiving the manuscript, directed and performed the analysis and interpretation of the findings, produced the manuscript drafts and revisions and provided final approval of the manuscript. C.E.S. was a coinvestigator, was involved in conceiving and designing the study, participated in data acquisition, aided in the interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript drafts and revisions. M.F.W. aided in the analysis and interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript revisions. J.E.B. was involved in conceiving and designing the study, participated in data acquisition and aided in the interpretation of the findings. M.Kohram was involved in conceiving and designing the study, participated in data acquisition, aided in the interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript drafts. M.M. aided in the analysis and interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript revisions. D.J.F. aided in the interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript revisions. M.Kouril was a coinvestigator, was involved in conceiving and designing the study, participated in data acquisition, aided in the interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript drafts and revisions. G.A.B. was involved in conceiving the study, aided in the interpretation of the findings and contributed to the manuscript drafts and revisions. All authors approved the submitted version.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jennie G. Noll or Ann-Christin Haag.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Human Behaviour thanks Amy Orben and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Histogram of the number of “authenticated” sessions for all participants by study subgroup.

Sessions were authenticated via keystroke verification at login or every two hours of consecutive use. Only session with “active” URL activity are shown (N = 23,839). Active activity was defined as consistent or intermittent interaction with a webpage in terms of page transitions, clicks, refreshes, or data inputs. One participant did not engage in any active sessions and was deleted from analyses. CSA = Child Sexual Abuse. DMC = Demographically-Matched Comparisons. CMC = Census-Matched Comparisons.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Tables 1–10 and References.

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Noll, J.G., Haag, AC., Shenk, C.E. et al. An observational study of Internet behaviours for adolescent females following sexual abuse. Nat Hum Behav 6, 74–87 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01187-5

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