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Child sexual abuse presenting to a teaching hospital in colombo, Sri Lanka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Y. Rohanachandra ,
I. Amarabandu  and
P.B. Dassanayake
Y. Rohanachandra*
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
I. Amarabandu
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
P.B. Dassanayake
Affiliation:
Office Of The Judicial Medical Officer, Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Child sexual abuse is a major public health problem in Sri Lanka, with prevalence rates ranging from 14-44%.

Objectives

We aimed to describe the victim and perpetrator characteristics, pattern of disclosure and psychological consequences of sexual abuse in children presenting to a tertiary care hospital in Sri Lanka.

Methods

This was a retrospective file review study of 164 victims who presented to a Teaching Hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with alleged sexual abuse over a period of 5 years from 2015-2019.

Results

Majority of the victims were female and older than 12 years. Majority (73.6%) have been subjected to penetrative sexual abuse with 58.5% of victims reporting more than one incident of abuse. Almost all (99.9%) of the perpetrators were male, with 94.5% being known to the child. Only 42.7% (n=70) of the children revealed about the incident within the first week. Delayed disclosure (i.e. more than 1 week since the incident) was significantly higher in penetrative abuse (p<0.01), multiple incidents of abuse (p<0.01) and in abuse by a known person (p<0.05). Children who disclosed after one week were significantly less likely to disclose about the incident spontaneously (p<0.01). Psychological sequel was seen in 28.7%, with depression being the commonest diagnosis (8.5%). Psychological consequences were significantly in higher those who had physical evidence of abuse (p<0.01), delayed (after 1 week) disclosure (p<0.05) and in those who did not disclose spontaneously (p<0.01).

Conclusions

The victim and perpetrator characteristics, pattern of disclosure is comparable with previous literature.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Keywords

sexual abusepatterns of disclosurevictim characteristics
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 64 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 29th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2021 , pp. S631 - S632
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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