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One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population
BACKGROUND: Sexual harassment (SH) has been highlighted as an important determinant for mental health. The aims of this study were to describe SH in terms of cumulative 1-year incidence, exposed groups, types of perpetrators and settings, and to measure the association between SH and poor mental wel...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9159336/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35092279 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckab225 |
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author | Östergren, Per-Olof Canivet, Catarina Agardh, Anette |
author_facet | Östergren, Per-Olof Canivet, Catarina Agardh, Anette |
author_sort | Östergren, Per-Olof |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Sexual harassment (SH) has been highlighted as an important determinant for mental health. The aims of this study were to describe SH in terms of cumulative 1-year incidence, exposed groups, types of perpetrators and settings, and to measure the association between SH and poor mental well-being. METHODS: Data from two waves of the Scania Public Health Cohort Study, comprising 7759 randomly recruited individuals above 18 years. Exposure to SH was measured by an instrument that also recorded place of exposure and type of perpetrator. Poor mental well-being was assessed by General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12, 36-Item Short Form Health Survey questionnaire (SF-36) (mental health module) and self-reported use of prescribed psychotropic medication. Logistic regression was used for multivariate analyses. RESULTS: The cumulative 1-year incidence of SH was six times greater among women, the highest figure (17.5%) was noted for women 18–34 years of age. No difference was noted regarding educational level or country of origin. Public places, including public transportation, and unknown offenders were the most frequently reported setting of SH for both genders. Exposure to SH was associated with a doubled risk for low mental well-being, according to all three outcome definitions, and after adjustment for mental health 6 years earlier. Female gender was related to greater vulnerability to SH exposure concerning GHQ-12 and SF-36. The Population Attributable Fraction for poor mental health was calculated to 13% for women 34 years and younger. CONCLUSION: The results of this study make SH an important issue for gender policy as well as for public health policy and intervention. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9159336 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91593362022-06-05 One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population Östergren, Per-Olof Canivet, Catarina Agardh, Anette Eur J Public Health Mental Health BACKGROUND: Sexual harassment (SH) has been highlighted as an important determinant for mental health. The aims of this study were to describe SH in terms of cumulative 1-year incidence, exposed groups, types of perpetrators and settings, and to measure the association between SH and poor mental well-being. METHODS: Data from two waves of the Scania Public Health Cohort Study, comprising 7759 randomly recruited individuals above 18 years. Exposure to SH was measured by an instrument that also recorded place of exposure and type of perpetrator. Poor mental well-being was assessed by General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12, 36-Item Short Form Health Survey questionnaire (SF-36) (mental health module) and self-reported use of prescribed psychotropic medication. Logistic regression was used for multivariate analyses. RESULTS: The cumulative 1-year incidence of SH was six times greater among women, the highest figure (17.5%) was noted for women 18–34 years of age. No difference was noted regarding educational level or country of origin. Public places, including public transportation, and unknown offenders were the most frequently reported setting of SH for both genders. Exposure to SH was associated with a doubled risk for low mental well-being, according to all three outcome definitions, and after adjustment for mental health 6 years earlier. Female gender was related to greater vulnerability to SH exposure concerning GHQ-12 and SF-36. The Population Attributable Fraction for poor mental health was calculated to 13% for women 34 years and younger. CONCLUSION: The results of this study make SH an important issue for gender policy as well as for public health policy and intervention. Oxford University Press 2022-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9159336/ /pubmed/35092279 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckab225 Text en © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Mental Health Östergren, Per-Olof Canivet, Catarina Agardh, Anette One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
title | One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
title_full | One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
title_fullStr | One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
title_full_unstemmed | One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
title_short | One-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
title_sort | one-year incidence of sexual harassment and the contribution to poor mental health in the adult general population |
topic | Mental Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9159336/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35092279 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckab225 |
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