title: Post-traumatic stress disorder and quality of life in sexually abused Australian children.
abstract: The study used publicly available data on post-traumatic stress disorder in a sample of the Australian population with a history of sexual abuse to demonstrate how this evidence can inform economic analyses. The 2007 Australian Mental Health Survey revealed that 8.3% of 993 adolescents experienced childhood sexual abuse, of which 40.2% were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis corresponded to a significant loss of quality of life. Survival analysis was used to estimate the lifetime persistence of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. The average time between post-traumatic stress disorder onset and remission was 11.4 years. Results suggest that successful treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder will save 2.05 quality adjusted life years per child or adolescent with post-traumatic stress disorder.
authors.affiliation: University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gospodarevskaya
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D055815:Young Adult