Practitioner Views on the Impacts, Challenges, and Barriers in Supporting Older Survivors of Sexual Violence

Abstract

Despite half a century of research on both sexual violence and elder abuse, the intersection between the two remains largely unexplored. Using theoretical lenses of feminist criminology and critical feminist gerontology, this article explores the intersection between age and sexual violence drawing on interviews with 23 practitioners supporting older survivors (aged 60 and over). They reported physical and emotional effects of sexual violence leading to limited lifestyles, disengagement from social networks, and reliance on pathogenic coping strategies. Provision of effective support was complicated by challenges associated with aging bodies and the social stigma associated with both sexual victimhood and older age. Additional challenges lay in supporting older male survivors and those living with dementia. The article ends by discussing implications for practice and an agenda for future research.

The identification and treatment of mental health and substance misuse problems in sexual assault services: A systematic review

“…Of the 107 papers included in the review, some were relevant to more than one of our three review questions. For review question one, we included 78 publications providing information on how sexual assault services address mental health and substance misuse [20, 24-26, 33-106]; for review question two, we included 6 papers of five trial evaluations [84,89,92,[107][108][109]; and for review question three, we included 34 studies on stakeholders' views [20,25,34,37,44,53,54,60,62,72,78,82,86,90,93,94,97,[110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126] and 10 policy documents [20,22,[127][128][129][130][131][132]…”

“…We found 34 papers [20,25,34,37,44,53,54,60,62,72,78,82,86,90,93,94,97,[110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126] relating to 32 studies, which reported stakeholders' views on how sexual assault services should identify and respond to mental health and substance misuse problems for people following sexual assault. Twenty five were peer-reviewed publications [25,34,44,53,54,60,72,78,82,90,94,[110][111][112][113][114]…”

“…Twenty five studies [20,34,37,53,62,72,86,93,94,97,110,[112][113][114][115][116][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126] reported more general perspectives and recommendations by stakeholders regarding service organisation or delivery within sexual assault services, with relevance to the experience of people with mental health and substance misuse needs. Characteristics and recommendations of each study are provided in the data supplement (S5 File).…”

“…Sexual assault services must ensure service users know they can decline a forensic examination/assessment and still receive support [34, 94,120]. Other recommendations included that: i) staff in sexual assault services should work closely with age-related organisations to facilitate support for older survivors of sexual assault [110]; ii) support to female service users should be provided by female staff…”

Sexual Assault Forensic Examination in adult and child cases: Is Colposcopy Really Necessary?

“…A lot of changes faced the forensic examiners regarding the responsibility of dealing with victims and providing effective measures and preventive setting. The most stressful task is to prove the assault and to undertake correct documentation and collection of evidence [2,3]. A genital injury is a type of trauma that has happened as a result of physical contact.…”