Prevalence and Psychological Correlates of Sexual Harassment in a Non-Clinical Sample of Nigerian Adolescents

AIMS: Sexual harassment among adolescents is a hidden epidemic with far-reaching consequences. This is because adolescence is a period of identity formation, exploration, and initiation of intimate relationships. Reviews have demonstrated causal associations between any type of victimization at school and adolescent well-being and later-life health, economic and social outcomes. The study was aimed at determining the prevalence of sexual harassment and identifying the psychological correlates of sexual harassment among a sample of Nigerian high school adolescents. METHODS: A multistage stratified sampling was used in this cross-sectional study to recruit 960 high school adolescents out of which 918 provided valid responses (mean age = 15.1 +/- 1.36 years). They answered questionnaires that assessed sociodemographic variables, sexual harassment (Sexual Harassment Questionnaire), overall well-being (General Health Questionnaire-12(GHQ-12), anxiety and depressive symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), self-esteem (Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) and positive ideation/negative suicide ideations (Positive and Negative Suicidal ideation Scale (PANSI-PI/NSI). Descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted with statistical significance set at p-value <0.05. RESULTS: Females constituted 51.4% of the sample. About a quarter (26.1%) of our participants reported that they had experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime. The mean total scores on the sexual harassment, overall well-being, anxiety and depressive symptoms, self-esteem, resilience, negative suicidal ideation, and suicide ideation scales were 32.64 (SD = 13.64), 1.91(2.32),17.01(SD = 6.37),18.76(SD = 4.41), 21.78(SD = 8.40), 13.14(SD = 6.33) and 16.84 (SD = 6.23) respectively. Sexual harassment scores were positively correlated with GHQ-12 scores (r = 0.34, p < 0.001), HADS (r = 0.30, p < 0.001), and PANSI-NSI (r = 0.50, p < 0.001) and negatively correlated with RSES (r = −0.20, p < 0.001) however the correlation with resilience was not significant (r = −0.06, p = 0.76). CONCLUSION: Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem among adolescents that is associated with low well-being, low self-esteem, the presence of depressive and anxiety symptoms, and increased suicidality. It is therefore essential for relevant stakeholders to develop and implement appropriate policies that would assist in identifying and addressing this menace among school students. Adequate psychological intervention should also be provided for affected individuals.