Purpose: to investigate the social and demographic characteristics of women victims of sexual abuse; to evaluate their sexual experience before the abuse; to investigate the use of contraceptive methods at the time of the violence, and to observe the interval between the occurrence of the abuse and the search for a hospital attendance. Methods: 117 encoded records were evaluated, of a total of 134, obtained regarding the attendance of women victims of sexual abuse at the Maternity of the Hospital de Clinicas, in Curitiba, in the period between August, 1998 and June, 2000. Results: the age of the women varied from 5 to 49 years and half of them were young, with 19 years at the most. The majority of them were graduates or attending high school, 41 (41,0%) were students and 82 (82,0%) were single. The sexual experience analysis showed that one third (32,4%) was virgin. Among the women who reported sexual experience, 35 (47,9 %) were using a contraceptive method when they suffered abuse. There was a range from 2 hours to 2 months since the occurrence of the sexual violence until the search for attendance. Conclusions: the number of women victims of sexual abuse showed the importance of specialized attendance and also the necessity of a multidisciplinary attendance, since among the victims there are children who need special attention. The period of time between the sexual abuse and the search for hospital attendance was large, showing that there should be more information available to the population in relation to the prevention of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection.
Sexual abuse; Sexually transmitted diseases (STD); Emergency contraceptive measures
