JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Sexual assault (SA) has numerous negative outcomes on physical, sexual and mental health, social life, financial stability and overall quality of life. It is known as one of the most traumatogenic event. However, not all people who experienced SA will develop negative functional outcomes. Multiple risk and protection factors can influence their psycho-socio-judicial trajectories. The ways by which these factors impact trauma adaptation are not always clear.

Objective:

Guided by an ecological framework, this project aims to (1) describe psycho-socio-judicial one-year trajectories of people recently exposed to SA, to (2) identify predictive factors for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at first forensic examination using artificial intelligence and to (3) explore the notions of “victim” and “trauma” and the needs and experiences of people who have been sexually assaulted.

Methods:

This longitudinal multi-centric cohort study will use a mixed-method approach. Quantitative cohort data will be collected based on questionnaires repeated in time, starting from first forensic examination and covering up to a year after the SA, measuring factors associated with PTSD, mental, physical, social and overall functional outcomes, and psycho-socio-judicial trajectories. Qualitative data will be based on semi-structured interviews with members of the cohort, people who experienced SA but not included in the cohort, and actors professionally involved in their psycho-socio-judicial care.

Results:

Bivariate and multivariate analyses will be performed to study the associations between each variable and mental, physical, social and judicial outcomes. Predictive analyses will be conducted on multiple prediction algorithms to predict PTSD. Qualitative data will be integrated to the quantitative data to identify psycho-socio-judicial trajectories of participants and data on the representations of the place and usefulness of the notions of “trauma” and “victims” will be used independently.

Conclusions:

This project will collect numerous data never before collected over such long periods, which will lead to unprecedented results on psycho-socio-judicial trajectories of people who experienced SA. By being based on the entire psycho-socio-judicial chain and on the perspective of people who experienced SA, this work will allow to make innovative recommendations to improve their care at all levels, from the initial forensic examination.