Clinical care given to victims of sexual assault at Kadoma General Hospital, Zimbabwe: a secondary data analysis, 2016

BACKGROUND Despite the guidelines for managing sexual assault being in place, victims of sexual assault attended to at Kadoma General Hospital consistently raised complaints related to the quality of care offered. Medicolegal data for sexual assault has been collected at the hospital since 2012. However, no analysis had been done regardless of complaints having been raised. We analysed the dataset to determine the quality of clinical care offered to sexual assault victims. METHODS A retrospective cross-sectional study based on secondary data was conducted. Epi. Info 7 software was used to analyse data and generate frequencies, measures of central tendency and proportions. RESULTS We analysed 474 medical affidavits completed between January 2014 and July 2016. Thirty percent of the victims sought care within 72 h of the sexual assault. Baseline HIV testing was done in 23 (22%) and follow-up HIV test done in 2 (2%) of the victims. Post Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV was administered to 18 (51%), emergency contraception 9 (69%) and forensic evidence gathered in six (5%) of victims presenting within the prescribed 72 h of the sexual assault. Prophylactic antibiotics were given to 156 (33%). There were no documented counselling sessions for all victims whilst follow up care was given to 47 (10%) victims. CONCLUSION Suboptimal clinical care was given to victims of sexual assault during the period 2014-2016. These findings suggest possible delayed presentation by victims of sexual assault as well as suboptimal administration of prophylaxis by health care workers. We recommend adherence to guidelines in managing sexual assault. Further research to determine factors for delayed presentation among sexual assault victims and quality of care provided to them is recommended.