Rationale:

• Patients often expect immediate results from the collected specimens, and they need to be informed that evidence may not be examined unless law enforcement expects a reasonable chance of adjudication.
• Patients may lack a clear understanding of all the STDs that have or have not been addressed with treatments, and this information must be repeated verbally and in written form.
• Despite easy access to follow-up services, many sexual assault victims fail to obtain medical follow-up examinations and cannot be reached by telephone.
• Sexual assault precipitates a psychological crisis for the patient, termed rape trauma syndrome.

Evidence:

• A cross-sectional survey of 103 women showed that patients rarely understand the potential sequelae of STDs or the concept of STD prophylaxis (85).
• Only 35% of 812 women sexual assault survivors receiving a forensic examination in one center completed a medical follow-up examination (86).
• A small observational study of female survivors of sexual assault showed the difficulty following up with victims after sexual assault, as less than one-fourth could be reached by telephone 3 months after the initial examination (87).
• Rape trauma syndrome is a pattern of symptoms, similar to PTSD, first termed by researchers after doing a qualitative observational study of patients who had been raped and who presented to Boston City Hospital (59).

Comments:

• None.