NCJ Number
93513
Journal
Victimology Volume: 8 Issue: 3-4 Dated: (1983) Pages: 237-250
Date Published
1983
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This paper addresses the longitudinal effects of sexual victimization, focusing on the type of sexual assault trauma experienced by the victim over time.
Abstract
Type of trauma was measured in terms of the emotional concerns expressed by the victims at three time periods: during the assault, at intake to the treatment center, and at follow-up assessment. Data were collected by interviewing every female sexual assault victim admitted to a rape treatment center in an urban hospital during a two-year period. The results are that concerns voiced by the victims at specific points in time do not cluster. Using facet theory and a mapping sentence, concerns for each time period were mapped into the same space and the data were submitted to a smallest space analysis. The findings indicate that concerns of a similar kind (e.g., fear) are highly related to each other over time in the context of all other concerns. Implications are that crisis intervention techniques ought to be developed to help the victim earlier once the specific type of sexual assault trauma is assessed. (Author abstract)