"Universal Precautions": perinatal touch and examination after childhood sexual abuse.
BACKGROUND
Childhood sexual abuse is a common experience of Australian women with 1 woman in 3 reporting unwanted sexual activity, and 1 in 10 reporting attempted or penetrative sexual abuse before 16 years of age. The objective of this study was to explore women's responses to perinatal professional touch and examination of themselves and their babies.


METHODS
Eighteen women were interviewed using an in-depth semistructured qualitative method. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interviews were coded and thematically analyzed, using NVivo to assist with data management. To ensure rigor, four initial interviews were coded by a second researcher and discrepancies resolved.


RESULTS
Two key themes were identified by childhood sexual abuse survivors as important in improving service provision: safety issues for survivors and their babies in the clinical encounter and ways of making service provision safer.


CONCLUSIONS
Childhood sexual abuse survivors experienced pain, dissociation, fear, blame, helplessness, and guilt in their encounters with health care practitioners. These experiences led to the development of a set of "Universal Precautions" for perinatal professionals responding to women and their children.
Coles
Jan
J
Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia/Department of General Practice, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
Jones
Kay
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D018743:Perinatal Care / Q000379:methods; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011209:Power, Psychological; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012449:Safety; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014110:Touch; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology; D016635:Universal Precautions