Abstract

AMORIM DE AVILA*, Janaina; NETTO DE OLIVEIRA, Adriane Maria  and  ARRUDA DA SILVA, Priscila. Knowledge of Nurses when Faced with Sexual Abuse. av.enferm. [online]. 2012, vol.30, n.2, pp.47-55. ISSN 0121-4500.

Objective: This study examined professional practice of nurses from five Basic Health Units of the family from a city in southern Brazil in relation with sexual abuse of children and adolescents. Methodology: This is a qualitative study, developed with seven nurses belonging to the seven teams from the Family Health Strategy, whose data were collected between the months of March and April of 2009 through semi-structured interview, focusing on knowledge about intervention in case of suspected sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence, and the perception of nurses on the assistance provided to victims of sexual abuse and their family. Results and discussion: On the grounds of thematic analysis of data, results indicate that professionals feel unprepared, helpless and disappointed with respect to the measures implemented to confirm or refute the suspected sexual abuse. Another highlight is that there is no victim care protocol to support professionals, which makes user care difficult. Conclusion: This study makes emphasis on the need of training courses that provide clarification on how to handle the issue, involving all the professionals who work with this reality.

Keywords : Sexual violence; nursing; primary health care.

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