Factors Influencing the Decision to Disclose After Sexual Assault

Virginians Aligned Against Sexual Assault (VAASA, 2004) report that I in 4 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Despite the prevalence of the crime, most women do not report acts of sexual assault to the police, making sexual assault, and rape in particular, one of the most underreported crimes (Backman, 1998). Research on has focused primarily on third-party reactions to sexual assault and victim culpability, but rarely seeks data directly from the victim in order to understand the psychological process of disclosing, or delaying disclosure, after an assault. Participants, 44 sexual assault victims seeking counseling at a non-profit rape crisis center, each completed anonymous surveys designed to examine factors that may influence one's decision to disclose following an assault. The current exploratory study found the following factors to delay significantly disclosure of sexual assault: the victim's categorization and degree of relationship to the assailant, congruence of perpetrator race, self-blame, religion as a reason to disclose, reasons against disclosing, and relationship status. The study failed to find a relationship between disclosure and sexual history, use of a weapon, and degree of injury. Although the present study is limited by a small sample size, the identification of factors associated with disclosure after sexual assault may be helpful for crisis counselors and sexual assault educators who work with this population.