A review of sexual transmitted infection rates among sexually assaulted patients that present for care.

BACKGROUND

Patients who experience sexual assault are at risk of adverse health outcomes including sexually transmitted infections (STI) and often present to various healthcare centers for post-assault care. Unfortunately, there are no standard guidelines on testing for STI among this patient population. Having an understanding of prevalence rates is essential and will help guide protocols, care guidelines and STI testing. In efforts to have a better understanding a review was conducted of published studies examining prevalence rates of STI among sexually assaulted patients.

METHODS

This paper is a review of published studies over the last 10 years that have examined prevalence of STIs including HIV among adult patients who have presented to care after a sexual assault.

RESULTS

A total of 12 studies that were included in this review. Studies used were, observational, retrospective descriptive, cross sectional and longitudinal studies. Years of data collection of the studies from 2001-2019.

CONCLUSIONS

This review notes a wide range of rates of STI among victims of sexual assault and wide variation in the types of STI that were tested and the percentage of patients tested at the different healthcare settings with some testing 100% of victims and other testing 22% of victims. Future research and healthcare recommendations point to a need for a more standardized approach to testing sexually assaulted patients and type of STI being tested.