Epidemiological, clinical and psychological aspects of victims of female child sexual abuse in the gynaecology and obstetrics department of tertiary hospital, Karnataka

Abstract

Child sexual abuse is an alarming reality that although is recognized as a serious violation of human well-being and of the law often goes unreported or overlooked. The present study was planned to identify the clinic-social profile of victims of child sexual abuse, circumstances under which these heinous crimes have occurred and study the psychological status of the victims. A retrospective record-based study from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021 conducted in a tertiary care hospital of north Karnataka, India. All the female patients aged less than 18 years admitted during our investigation period who were victims of child sexual abuse were included in the study. All case reports obtained from the medical record division and fulfilling the inclusion criteria were scrutinized by the authors for completeness of data. The data was entered in MS excel master sheet and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software version 22. A total of 158 victims of female child sexual abuse were documented in our centre. The age of the victims ranged from 1 to 17 years and that of abusers varied from 15 years to 75 years. For most incidents, the offenders were known to the victims. The highest incidence of sexual assault was reported in abusers’ home, followed by victim’s home. Majority of the female children were abused multiple times (45.6%). There is an urgent need for comprehensive prevention programs, awareness campaigns, accessible support services, public awareness campaigns and legal enhancements to address CSA effectively in schools and communities that educate children on recognizing and reporting abuse.