But were you drunk? Intoxication during sexual assault in Norway.

Background

Sexual assault often occurs when victims are intoxicated. Rape myth research indicates that intoxicated assaults are sometimes seen as less severe or not as 'real' assaults; however, it is unclear if victims of intoxicated sexual assaults differ from victims of non-intoxicated assaults in terms of health and functioning.

Objective

We investigated possible differences in mental health, social support and loneliness between intoxicated and non-intoxicated sexual assault victims.

Methods

Participants were 1011 young adults (505 exposed to childhood violence and 506 non-exposed) selected from a community telephone survey (T1), and a follow-up survey 12-18 months later (T2). Analyses include one-way ANOVA with Tamhane post hoc tests.

Results

There were no significant differences in mental health, social support and loneliness between victims of intoxicated and non-intoxicated sexual assault, although both groups differed significantly from those who did not report sexual assault.

Conclusions

These results indicate that intoxicated sexual assaults are no less clinically important than non-intoxicated assaults.