title: Regret and police reporting among individuals who have experienced sexual assault.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Sexual assault (SA) and the underreporting of SA are highly prevalent in the United States. Since regret is a complex, negative emotion linked to decision making, studying regret within the context of reporting SA is important.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe decisional regret regarding SA reporting.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional, descriptive study design was used. The sample included 78 individuals, aged 18 to 25 years, who experienced SA during the past 5 years and completed an electronic questionnaire. A multiple regression model was generated to describe how selected independent variables explain variation in levels of regret.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the final model, four independent variables accounted for 33.3% (adjusted R               (2)) of the variation in regret: weight change, stranger assailant, professional treatment, and police reporting.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings inform clinical practice by describing post-decisional regret about the reporting of SA, and they provide a foundation to develop strategies (e.g., decision aids) that can assist clinicians to help patients as they struggle to make difficult health care decisions.
authors.affiliation: Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. c.marchetti@neu.edu
authors.forename: Carol Anne
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Marchetti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001900:Boston; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003657:Decision Making; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016495:Police; D011902:Rape / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D055815:Young Adult