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Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police

BACKGROUND: Sexual assault is a prevalent crime against women globally with known negative effects on health. Recent media reports in Canada indicate that many sexual assault reports are not believed by police. Negative reporting experiences of sexual assault have been associated with secondary vict...

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Autores principales: McQueen, Karen, Murphy-Oikonen, Jodie, Miller, Ainsley, Chambers, Lori
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8141152/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34022858
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-021-01358-6
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author McQueen, Karen
Murphy-Oikonen, Jodie
Miller, Ainsley
Chambers, Lori
author_facet McQueen, Karen
Murphy-Oikonen, Jodie
Miller, Ainsley
Chambers, Lori
author_sort McQueen, Karen
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sexual assault is a prevalent crime against women globally with known negative effects on health. Recent media reports in Canada indicate that many sexual assault reports are not believed by police. Negative reporting experiences of sexual assault have been associated with secondary victimization and trauma among survivors. However, little is known about the impact that being sexually assaulted and not believed by police has on a survivor’s health and well-being. The purpose of this study was to explore women’s experiences of not being believed by police after sexual assault and their perceived impact on health. METHODS: We conducted open-ended and semi-structured interviews with 23 sexual assault survivors who were sexually assaulted and not believed by police. The interviews explored the self-reported health impacts of not being believed by police and were conducted from April to July, 2019. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and entered into NVIVO for analysis. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s analytic method. RESULTS: Analysis revealed three salient themes regarding the health and social impact of not being believed by police on survivors of sexual assault: (1) Broken Expectations which resulted in loss of trust and secondary victimization, (2) Loss of Self, and (3) Cumulative Health and Social Effects. The findings showed that not being believed by police resulted in additional mental and social burdens beyond that of the sexual assault. Many survivors felt further victimized by police at a time when they needed support, leading to the use taking of alcohol and/or drugs as a coping strategy. CONCLUSION: Reporting a sexual assault and not being believed by police has negative health outcomes for survivors. Improving the disclosure experience is needed to mitigate the negative health and social impacts and promote healing. This is important for police, health, and social service providers who receive sexual assault disclosures and may be able to positively influence the reporting experience and overall health effects. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-021-01358-6.
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spelling pubmed-81411522021-05-25 Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police McQueen, Karen Murphy-Oikonen, Jodie Miller, Ainsley Chambers, Lori BMC Womens Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Sexual assault is a prevalent crime against women globally with known negative effects on health. Recent media reports in Canada indicate that many sexual assault reports are not believed by police. Negative reporting experiences of sexual assault have been associated with secondary victimization and trauma among survivors. However, little is known about the impact that being sexually assaulted and not believed by police has on a survivor’s health and well-being. The purpose of this study was to explore women’s experiences of not being believed by police after sexual assault and their perceived impact on health. METHODS: We conducted open-ended and semi-structured interviews with 23 sexual assault survivors who were sexually assaulted and not believed by police. The interviews explored the self-reported health impacts of not being believed by police and were conducted from April to July, 2019. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and entered into NVIVO for analysis. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s analytic method. RESULTS: Analysis revealed three salient themes regarding the health and social impact of not being believed by police on survivors of sexual assault: (1) Broken Expectations which resulted in loss of trust and secondary victimization, (2) Loss of Self, and (3) Cumulative Health and Social Effects. The findings showed that not being believed by police resulted in additional mental and social burdens beyond that of the sexual assault. Many survivors felt further victimized by police at a time when they needed support, leading to the use taking of alcohol and/or drugs as a coping strategy. CONCLUSION: Reporting a sexual assault and not being believed by police has negative health outcomes for survivors. Improving the disclosure experience is needed to mitigate the negative health and social impacts and promote healing. This is important for police, health, and social service providers who receive sexual assault disclosures and may be able to positively influence the reporting experience and overall health effects. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-021-01358-6. BioMed Central 2021-05-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8141152/ /pubmed/34022858 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-021-01358-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
McQueen, Karen
Murphy-Oikonen, Jodie
Miller, Ainsley
Chambers, Lori
Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
title Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
title_full Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
title_fullStr Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
title_full_unstemmed Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
title_short Sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
title_sort sexual assault: women’s voices on the health impacts of not being believed by police
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8141152/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34022858
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-021-01358-6
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