Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Sep 27, 2017
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 28, 2017 - Oct 12, 2017
Date Accepted: Dec 19, 2017
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Understanding the Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Men’s Risk Behavior: Protocol for a Mixed-Methods Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) remains a critical public health issue among black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), as it is associated with multiple negative outcomes including substance misuse, poor mental health, revictimization, and high-risk sexual behavior. Most CSA research with MSM relies on quantitative assessment that often precludes consideration of cultural variations in how formative sexual experiences are understood and is based on inconsistent or overly restrictive definitions of abuse, and therefore may fail to detect certain abusive experiences (eg, those involving female perpetrators), which can have harmful health consequences if they remain unrecognized.
Objective:
The objective of this study is to overcome existing limitations in the literature by drawing on perspectives of black and Latino MSM and men who have sex with men and women (MSMW), as well as relevant service providers to better understand the role of, and the need to include, sexual abuse histories (eg, CSA) in treatment and counseling settings, with the long-term goal of improving assessment and health outcomes.
Methods:
We will conduct mixed-methods interviews, framed by an intersectionality approach, with 80 black and Latino men (40 MSM and 40 MSMW) in New York City (NYC), exploring appraisals of their formative sexual experiences, including those described as consensual but meeting criteria for CSA. We will also interview 30 local service providers representing substance abuse treatment, mental health care, and HIV prevention and outreach.
Results:
The study was launched in May 2017.
Conclusions:
This formative research will inform testable approaches to assessing and incorporating sexual abuse history into substance abuse treatment and other health and mental health services used by men with such histories.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.