title: Evaluating the legal impact of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner programs: an empirically validated toolkit for practitioners.
abstract: There has been sustained interest in the academic literature and in policy circles regarding how Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) programs may bolster sexual assault prosecution rates in their communities, in addition to the health care they provide to their patients. To build evaluation capacity among forensic nurses so that they can evaluate their own programs, a practitioner-oriented, step-by-step evaluation toolkit (the SANE Practitioner Evaluation Toolkit) that can be used by SANE-A and SANE-P programs, and their community partners, to examine sexual assault prosecution rates in their local jurisdictions was created and validated. This article describes the process of creating and empirically validating the toolkit and presents the toolkit itself and accompanying resources that are available to practitioners. This article also provides recommendations regarding program readiness to engage in evaluation activities, without compromising program sustainability and patient care.
authors.affiliation: Author Affiliations: 1Department of Psychology, Michigan State University; 2Townsend Consulting & Evaluation, Inc.; 3CARE USA.; and 4Independent Forensic Nursing Consultant.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Stephanie M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Townsend
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Nidal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Karim
authors.forename: Jenifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Markowitz
mesh_terms: D053604:Forensic Nursing / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000451:nursing*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011902:Rape