Renjulal Yesodharan, Pratibha Kamath, Vishnu Renjith, Nirmal M Krishnan, Udara Dilrukshi Senarathne, Suja Kumari Sasidharan, Tessy Treesa Jose, Vinod C Nayak
{"title":"The role of legal medicine professionals in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among female victims of sexual assault.","authors":"Renjulal Yesodharan, Pratibha Kamath, Vishnu Renjith, Nirmal M Krishnan, Udara Dilrukshi Senarathne, Suja Kumari Sasidharan, Tessy Treesa Jose, Vinod C Nayak","doi":"10.1007/s12024-023-00578-6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sexual violence can have an overwhelming impact on the victim's physical and mental health; the consequences include unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Therefore, the examiners must assess victims for possible pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections as a part of the sexual assault examination. This article aims to orient the medico-legal examiners towards their role in preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among victims of sexual assault. Prompt detection of pregnancy or STIs is critical, as any delay would adversely affect the successful administration of emergency contraception and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted infections.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":"440-451"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10518277/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-023-00578-6","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/3/7 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MEDICINE, LEGAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Sexual violence can have an overwhelming impact on the victim's physical and mental health; the consequences include unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Therefore, the examiners must assess victims for possible pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections as a part of the sexual assault examination. This article aims to orient the medico-legal examiners towards their role in preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among victims of sexual assault. Prompt detection of pregnancy or STIs is critical, as any delay would adversely affect the successful administration of emergency contraception and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted infections.
期刊介绍:
Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology encompasses all aspects of modern day forensics, equally applying to children or adults, either living or the deceased. This includes forensic science, medicine, nursing, and pathology, as well as toxicology, human identification, mass disasters/mass war graves, profiling, imaging, policing, wound assessment, sexual assault, anthropology, archeology, forensic search, entomology, botany, biology, veterinary pathology, and DNA. Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology presents a balance of forensic research and reviews from around the world to reflect modern advances through peer-reviewed papers, short communications, meeting proceedings and case reports.