Summary

Background: The management of sexual assault victims comprises complex medical, psychological, social and judicial care that was previously provided by various disciplines at several distant locations. This novel concept is the delivery of comprehensive care to victims of sexual assault at one location 24 hours a day.

Objectives: To describe the characteristics of sexual assault victims, their assailants, the assault and the treatment, and provide descriptive data on the evidentiary examination.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of the charts of all sexual assault victims presenting to the Regional Israeli Center for Care of Sexual Assault Victims between October 2000 and July 2010. The center, the first in Israel, provides comprehensive care to victims of sexual assault in one location 24 hours a day using a multidisciplinary approach.

Results: The study group comprised 1992 subjects; 91.5% of the victims were females and 8.5% were males, and the age ranged from 1 to 88 years (mean age 22.3 years). Of the 1992 victims, 1635 were single (82.2%), 195 were divorced (9.8%), 141 were married (7.1%), 18 were widowed (0.9%) and 3 were unspecified. The assailant was a stranger in 794 (39.8%) of the cases, someone familiar to the victim in 786 cases (39.0%), a partner in 127 cases (6.4%), a family member in 117 cases (5.9%), someone met via the internet in 53 cases (2.7%), an authority figure in 39 cases (2.0%), and unspecified in 76 (3.9%). In the majority of cases the attack occurred either in the evening or at night (71.7%).

Conclusions: We identified several risk factors for sexual assault that can be used in prevention programs. The sexual assault victim in our study tended to be a young, single woman who was attacked by a familiar assailant in the evening or at night. Our center provides comprehensive care to victims 24 hours a day at one location and includes a team of forensic, psychological, physical and legal specialists.