Sexual violence and adolescence

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the frequency of the sexual violence and it’s vary nuances in the adolescent patients, virgins or no assisted in the Division of Human Reproduction of the Institute of Gynecology of UFRJ. Methods: This is a study of prospective and of cohort where the patients were divided in two groups, virgins and no virgins, in a total of 1)8. Later a specific questionnaire was applied for each group, with questions concerning sexual violence and a group of questions common to the two groups for subsequent comparison. The patients, were chosen in a random way and among the adofescents of the clinic of the Division of Human Reproduction. The present study had the duration of 4 months (09/20/2001 to 01/15/2002) and it was approved by the Commission of Ethics in Research of the Institute of Gynecology of UFRJ. The adolescent’s responsible allowed their participation . The data were analyzed in the statistical program Epinfo 2000. Results: Among the 118 patients. 54.2% were virgin and 45,8% already had sexual relationships. Of the total, 8.4% already had suffered some type of sexual violence. In 100% of the cases, the professional of health never had asked about the subject with the patients. In the group of the virgins, about 60,9%. informed to have enough information on sexual violence, being the family in 40,6% of the times the main place of obtaining those information. About the same group. 6.3% told to have suffered violence, most of the time (75%). the aggressor was ignored and his source of more frequent information was the family. When the picture of common questions was compared to evaluate the nuances in the violence ways, it was evident that the virgin patients that suffered violence started to consider simple actions serious forms of violence. In the non virgins groups , 74% told that the first relationship happened early and in 48% of the cases it happened at the boyfriend’s house. About 11.1% of this adolescents had suffered sexual violence, and the precocity of the first relationship was shown to be an important statistical data to suffer violence (p=0.02). In most of the cases (83.3% ) the aggressor w as known. There was no variation in the answers of the picture’s nuances about the sexual violence. Conclusion: Among the virgins patients of the Institute of Gynecology, the violent action appeared to be more harmful and explicit in comparison with the no virgins patients. The low age of the first sexual relationship was a risk factor for the occurrence of violence. The family was the main source of information on the subject. The occurrence of sexual violence, in the virgin patients as no virgins, should be evaluate by any professional of health.