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Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse

Introduction Seven percent of the adult population in the UK, including one in six women, report unwanted sexual experiences before the age of 16. The impacts of psychological trauma following child sexual abuse (CSA) creates difficulties for many survivors in accessing dental care due to fears of r...

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Autores principales: Alyce, Susanna, Taggart, Danny, Montaque, Indiana, Turton, Jackie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9616715/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36307712
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41415-022-5103-z
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author Alyce, Susanna
Taggart, Danny
Montaque, Indiana
Turton, Jackie
author_facet Alyce, Susanna
Taggart, Danny
Montaque, Indiana
Turton, Jackie
author_sort Alyce, Susanna
collection PubMed
description Introduction Seven percent of the adult population in the UK, including one in six women, report unwanted sexual experiences before the age of 16. The impacts of psychological trauma following child sexual abuse (CSA) creates difficulties for many survivors in accessing dental care due to fears of reminders of abuse, the power imbalance with the dentist and triggered traumatic responses. Aims To analyse and report CSA survivor perspectives of dental care and offer suggestions for practice. Method Qualitative semi-structured interviews of 17 CSA survivors generated data as part of a broader study investigating trust and trustworthiness in survivor-professional relationships. The range of dental interactions and the needs survivors described when receiving dental treatment are presented. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo software and thematic analysis methodology. Results Three main themes were identified: the dental encounter ('it really panics me'); the opportunity to disclose; and choice and control. Conclusion This is the first UK study to present qualitative data from CSA survivors about their experiences of dental care. Survivors wish to access dental care but tailored support is needed to ameliorate reminders of abuse and traumatic stress triggers. Trauma-informed care may address difficulties with treatment if dental staff adopt flexible approaches and work collaboratively with survivors to facilitate relational safety. (Please note, in this paper, 'survivors' refers to those sexually abused as children).
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spelling pubmed-96167152022-10-30 Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse Alyce, Susanna Taggart, Danny Montaque, Indiana Turton, Jackie Br Dent J Research Introduction Seven percent of the adult population in the UK, including one in six women, report unwanted sexual experiences before the age of 16. The impacts of psychological trauma following child sexual abuse (CSA) creates difficulties for many survivors in accessing dental care due to fears of reminders of abuse, the power imbalance with the dentist and triggered traumatic responses. Aims To analyse and report CSA survivor perspectives of dental care and offer suggestions for practice. Method Qualitative semi-structured interviews of 17 CSA survivors generated data as part of a broader study investigating trust and trustworthiness in survivor-professional relationships. The range of dental interactions and the needs survivors described when receiving dental treatment are presented. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo software and thematic analysis methodology. Results Three main themes were identified: the dental encounter ('it really panics me'); the opportunity to disclose; and choice and control. Conclusion This is the first UK study to present qualitative data from CSA survivors about their experiences of dental care. Survivors wish to access dental care but tailored support is needed to ameliorate reminders of abuse and traumatic stress triggers. Trauma-informed care may address difficulties with treatment if dental staff adopt flexible approaches and work collaboratively with survivors to facilitate relational safety. (Please note, in this paper, 'survivors' refers to those sexually abused as children). Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-10-28 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9616715/ /pubmed/36307712 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41415-022-5103-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access. This 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 Author(s) 2022
spellingShingle Research
Alyce, Susanna
Taggart, Danny
Montaque, Indiana
Turton, Jackie
Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
title Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
title_full Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
title_fullStr Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
title_full_unstemmed Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
title_short Avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
title_sort avoiding psychological (re)traumatisation in dentistry when working with patients who are adult survivors of child sex abuse
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9616715/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36307712
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41415-022-5103-z
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