Experiences of dehumanizing: Examining secondary victimization within the nurse-patient relationship among African American women survivors of sexual assault in the Upper Midwest

Ashley M. Ruiz, Kaylen M. Moore, Lynne M. Woehrle, Peninnah Kako, Kelly C. Davis and Lucy Mkandawire-Valhmu

Social Science & Medicine, 2023, vol. 329, issue C

Abstract: Despite calls recognizing the need for culturally sensitive responses to minimize the occurrence of secondary victimization for African American women following an experience of sexual assault, few studies have focused on hearing from African American women survivors about their experiences receiving healthcare services in a hospital setting following sexual assault. Employing critical ethnography as our methodology and using intersectionality theory as a lens, we centered the voices of African American women survivors about their experiences receiving nursing care in urban acute care or hospital settings in the Upper Midwest of the United States following sexual assault. In this qualitative study, 30 African American women survivors were interviewed using in-depth, semi-structured interviews about their post-sexual assault care. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. An important theme identified focused on survivors’ experiences of dehumanization when receiving healthcare services following sexual assault. These experiences included: discrediting, dismissing, shaming, and blaming. To mitigate and prevent secondary victimization in the future, we present practice and education change recommendations for nurses, and healthcare providers more broadly, based on the voices of African American female survivors of sexual assault.

Keywords: Secondary victimization; Re-traumatization; Sexual assault; Healthcare; Nursing; African American women; Survivors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623003866
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:329:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623003866

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116029

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().