![]() Emergency caregivers should reinforce to sexual assault patients clearly and unreservedly that the assault was not their fault. Early emergency care interventions can help to promote recovery. Sexual assault patients struggle with guilt. Sexual assault patients often are doubted or blamed these negative responses have a number of harmful effects, including decreasing the chance that victims will report the crime and reach out for help. Coordinated care plans and multi‐disciplinary teams can help address some of the gaps in service delivery. A multi‐disciplinary team, which may include social work, advocacy, and chaplain services, along with emergency caregivers is needed to address the psychological, spiritual, social, and physical needs of these patients. Sexual assault patients face ongoing difficulty accessing health services, including mental healthcare. Policies should focus on creating a coordinated trauma‐informed intentional response to help afford patients access to comprehensive immediate care, minimize the trauma patients may experience, and encourage them to utilize community resources.Ĭoordination of care following discharge from the Emergency Department is a challenge and a lack of this coordination likely contributes to the negative feelings described in this study. Participants in this study reported a heavy burden of post‐traumatic stress symptoms and experienced significant challenges with social, medical, and legal interactions in the year after the assault. Sexual assault is a crime of violence that often threatens a victim's sense of privacy, safety, autonomy, and well‐being. also highlight an urgent new priority emergency caregivers need to offer services beyond initial healthcare, prophylaxis and evidence collection. Additionally, emergency caregivers should address the physical comfort needs of patients and provide compassionate and sensitive delivery of services in a non‐judgmental manner.īuchbinder et al. Information and resources should be provided to patients that they can review at their convenience. Victim services need to be offered early on in the process. Explanation of procedures during the examination process and respect for patient priorities along with patient safety during the examination process must all be addressed. The examination should be adapted to patients’ needs and circumstances. These patients must be deemed a priority, and patient privacy always needs to be maintained. ![]() study reported negative experiences while seeking medical care such as insensitive treatment, though others reported positive experiences that facilitated their recovery.Īs described in the National Protocol for Sexual Assault, it is imperative that victim‐centered care be initiated by all who treat these patients. The literature has been clear regarding clinical needs of sexual assault patients, including assessing and providing sexually transmitted infection prophylaxis, emergency contraception, and HIV prophylaxis in the Emergency Department.Ī number of participants in the Buchbinder et al. Sexual assault patients struggle with guilt and need to hear that the assault was not their fault from the emergency caregivers. There are 3 key lessons that every emergency caregiver should take away from this article: The participants reported in “searing detail the challenges faced during the year after assault, including mental distress, a profoundly altered sense of self, a justice system experienced as grossly unfair, financial difficulties due to assault‐related disability, burden of previous life trauma weighing more heavily, struggles with romantic relationships and interactions.”ĭescriptions of the impact of sexual assault on daily life included, “It affects you in every aspect of life.” ![]() Themes that emerged from the study fell into 12 broad categories: daily life, justice, medical and social services, mental health, physical health, prior trauma, recovery, romantic relationships, safety, self, shame, and social interactions. These women were asked at 1 week, 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year after sexual assault, “What do you think is most important for researchers to understand about your experience since the assault?” This is the first large scale qualitative study of sexual assault survivors seen in US emergency care centers and adds to the literature on the long‐term burden of sexual assault and the implications for emergency caregivers. This prospective, longitudinal, multicenter observational study spanning 13 geographically distributed sites included responses from 590 English speaking adult women who received sexual assault nurse examiner evaluation within 72 hours of the sexual assault. present “’I Still Feel So Lost’: Experiences of Women Receiving SANE Care during the Year after Sexual Assault,” providing priceless insights about the short‐term and long‐term impact of sexual assault on patients.
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