Impact of child sexual abuse disclosure on non-offending parents: a systematic review (2011-2021)

Abstract

Introduction. A systematic literature review was conducted on the impacts of disclosure of child sexual abuse on non-offending parent figures. Previous empirical research suggests that parent figure support plays a key role in children’s mental health and recovery prognosis after disclosure. Parent figures report stress and impairment following the disclosure. Over the last decades, it is the impact on mothers that has been the most widely studied. It has now become relevant to conduct a systematic review of the personal and parental impacts of child sexual abuse disclosure on non-offending parent figures. Specifically, the objective was to recognise: 1) the emotional impacts on parent figures; 2) the impacts on the exercise of parenthood; and 3), the impacts on parent figure identities. Methodology. A systematic review was performed following the PRISMA methodology 2020. The empirical evidence available on the impacts of disclosure on parent figures between 2010 and 2021 was collected from two major databases: Web of Science and Scopus. A total of 26 empirical studies meeting the inclusion and eligibility criteria were selected and analysed. Results. Parent figures suffer various emotional impacts linked to their children’s experience of abuse. In addition, disclosure affected the exercise of their parenthood, as they developed parenting practices focused on their children’s care and protection needs, manifesting anxiety and overprotection. Finally, the identity of the protective figure was redefined, owing to parental role questioning and feelings of guilt. Discussion. Parent figures suffer stress and impairment following the disclosure of their children’s abuse. Therefore, given the emotional impacts, parent figures can be regarded as secondary victims. This notion of secondary victim, however, fails to account for all the complexity of the relational impacts. Indeed, changes in the conception and practices of parenting were identified, together with a shift in the positioning of the protective figure role. Conclusions. Future studies could include both female and male figures and explore the differentiated impacts according to gender. Moreover, it would be useful to perform an in-depth study on the impacts of sexual abuse disclosure on families, including the experiences of child victim siblings. To finish, the collected evidence can help to design psychosocial interventions that are sensitive and adapted to the needs of the families and parent figure particularities.