Sociodemographic, behavioural, psychological and contraceptive aspects among victims of sexual abuse presented to the District General Hospital, Kegalle, Sri Lanka - A retrospective study

Sexual abuse remains a significant health issue with psycho-social impacts on victims, which gives rise to the necessity of conducting focused research. The objective of this study was to retrospectively analyze the sociodemographic, behavioural, psychological, and contraceptive aspects of sexual abuse victims presented to the District General Hospital, Kegalle, Sri Lanka. Data was collected by scrutinizing the medico-legal examination records of sexual abuse victims presented to the District General Hospital, Kegalle, from 15/04/2024 to 01/10/2024 and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26. The sample of 49 considered cases consisted of 42 females (85.7%) and 7 males (14.3%) with a mean age of 21.6 years. The perpetrators included relatives (28.6%), intimate partners (26.5%), guardians (14.3%) and in 12.2% cases the perpetrators were unknown. Evidence of physical abuse was present in 9 (18.3%) of cases, 8 (16.3%) of them being non-grievous. Among 44.9% of the victims, deranged family dynamics such as marital disputes among parents were noted. Features of psychological sequelae were observed in 32.7% of cases, with post-traumatic stress disorder (18.4%) and depression (14.3%) being the most common. Mental age was observed to be less than the documented chronological age in 14.3% of cases. Among the victims aged 13 years and above (n=39), 38.5% were aware of the contraceptive methods. This study highlights the involvement of familiar perpetrators, psychological impact, family dynamics and limited awareness of contraception, emphasizing the need for targeted intervention to minimize the ill effects of sexual abuse on victims.