In this study, we look at how common different diagnoses are among people who have had a sexual assault registered in the healthcare system, in comparison to people who have not. The data is based on all children and adults who lived in Stockholm between 2008-2014. Here we see that it is more than 10 times as common for a person who has had a sexual assault registered in the healthcare system to have stress-related illnesses, anxiety and substance abuse problems, among other things.

In this study, we further looked at the use of healthcare for girls aged 12-17, who were the most vulnerable group in the study above, one and two years before a sexual assault is registered in the healthcare system. We conducted this study because we know that children rarely tell and that abuse affects health, and we wanted to know if there were patterns that could mean that these girls could be identified and helped earlier? There were. Among other things, it was 15 times more common for these girls to seek healthcare due to suicide attempts than other girls of the same age in the same residential area, that they sought healthcare much more often than their peers, and that it was almost 10 times as common for them to receive medication for anxiety and sleep problems. One conclusion from the study is that there is a need for increased knowledge within Swedish healthcare about how to identify and treat young people who have been subjected to or are at risk of being subjected to sexual assault.

In this study, we investigate what happens one and two years after the health care system has registered that sexual abuse has occurred in the girls from the previous study. Among other things, what we wanted to know was whether the health care system could reduce the risk of suicide attempts when there was knowledge of the sexual abuse. What we saw was that the health care system could not reduce the risk of suicide attempts. Instead, the risk of these girls seeking health care due to suicide attempts rose to 26 times higher than for girls of the same age in the same residential area. One conclusion is that there is a need for increased knowledge and understanding of which interventions and processes within the health care system improve or worsen health and well-being, and increase or decrease the risk of suicide attempts and suicide in young people who have been subjected to sexual abuse.

This study uses a new PTSD protocol, based on Lifespan Integration, for the treatment of PTSD after rape. 70% of participants were free of their PTSD diagnosis after a two-hour treatment, and the results were maintained after 6 months. A conclusion is that new perspectives on PTSD and PTSD treatment can shorten the treatment time for PTSD after rape. The study is a pilot study and several and larger studies are planned. Below are some of the comments from reviewers: "Strong design for a pilot study and I appreciate the decision to examine a single session intervention specifically for individuals with a single traumatic event in the relatively recent past." "The findings are promising and have potentially very important implications for the field" "The possible explanations of the efficacy of the MLI section is incredibly interesting"

This study analyzes the symptoms, diagnoses and types of abuse that occur among patients seeking help at WONSA's specialist clinic, as well as how they have experienced access to healthcare. Among other things, it is seen that: the majority of patients have been exposed to penetrating abuse in childhood 80% have tried to seek help at other clinics before coming to WONSA. 90% meet the criteria for PTSD and/or depression when they come to WONSA, regardless of whether they have had contact with another healthcare provider before coming to WONSA. The average time between the first assault and the patient telling someone about the assault for the first time is 16 years the average number of diagnoses upon enrollment at WONSA was 6 diagnoses. The factors that had the strongest connection to suicide attempts were: number of ACEs number of perpetrators and biological father as the first perpetrator. The study also presents a gatekeeping model for how knowledge of factors that hinder or facilitate access to care for victims of sexual offenses can be used to evaluate access to care for victims of sexual offenses.

Results: Of the participants exposed to penetrating sexual violence, 49% stated that they had or had been diagnosed with depression, compared with 16% in the group not exposed to sexual violence. Similar findings were found for anxiety: 45% versus 12%; fatigue syndrome 28% versus 9%; post traumatic stress disorder 30% versus <0.1% and suicide attempts, 29% versus 3%. More participants in the group exposed to sexual violence had grown up in families with alcohol problems, suicide attempts, or where they have witnessed violence.

Conclusion: Steps should be taken to adapt the national suicide prevention strategy to the association between sexual violence and suicide attempts, which has been so clearly demonstrated earlier in both international and national studies, and which is again shown in the present study.