ArticlePsychological medicine2023
Sexual abuse and psychotic phenomena: a directed acyclic graph analysis of affective symptoms using English national psychiatric survey data.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bullying, State Policy, and Mental Health Symptoms in Gender-Diverse Youths.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Association between bullying, state-level policy and mental health symptoms in gender diverse youth.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Relationship Between Schizotypal Traits, Emotion Regulation, and Negative Affect in Children: A Network Analysis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Article
- Sexual abuse and psychotic phenomena: a directed acyclic graph analysis of affective symptoms using English national psychiatric survey data - ERRATUM.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSexual abuse and bullying are associated with poor mental health in adulthood. We previously established a clear relationship between bullying and symptoms of psychosis. Similarly, we would expect sexual abuse to be linked to the emergence of psychotic symptoms, through effects on negative affect.
methodWe analysed English data from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys, carried out in 2007 (
resultsIn the DAG analyses, contrary to our expectations, paranoia appeared early in the cascade of relationships, close to the abuse variables, and generally lying upstream of affective symptoms. Paranoia was consistently directly antecedent to hallucinations, but also indirectly so, via non-psychotic symptoms. Hallucinosis was also the endpoint of pathways involving non-psychotic symptoms.
conclusionsVia worry, sexual abuse and bullying appear to drive a range of affective symptoms, and in some people, these may encourage the emergence of hallucinations. The link between adverse experiences and paranoia is much more direct. These findings have implications for managing distressing outcomes. In particular, worry may be a salient target for intervention in psychosis.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.