What can GPs do for adult patients disclosing recent sexual violence?

Abstract

Sexual violence has a life-time prevalence of 20–25% so it follows that GPs will encounter patients who have experienced sexual violence. While international best practice is for such patients to be managed at specialist Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs),1–4 of which there are more than 30 in the UK alone, GPs have several important roles to play: Patients who have experienced sexual violence frequently feel loss of control over their lives. Restoring patient autonomy and a sense of self-determination should be the overriding approach to consultations. In our experience, an open mind and non-judgemental attitude, on the part of the doctor, facilitates disclosure. When providing advice, it is useful to use phrases such as ‘let me explain the choices you have’, ‘you can decide what you think is best for you’, and ‘you can stop this consultation at any time if you wish’. SARCs offer a range of services to patients, including forensic medical examination (that is, attending to patients’ immediate medical needs, …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 17 citations exist upstream.