Psychological effects of rape and coping strategies of rape victims in the Gauteng province

Abstract

This study investigated the psychological effects and coping strategies of women who were raped in the Gauteng province. The study aimed to dete1mine the effects that rape has on the victims and to determine the coping strategies that the victims employ to deal with their ordeal. Using a quantitative methodology the study was conducted among I 00 female rape victims that were sampled from selected rape crisis centres in the Gauteng province. The researcher used the Trauma Symptom CheckJ ist (TSC-40), as well as the Coping Strategies Inventory Short Form (CS I-SF) which are both standardised and validated instruments. The responses of the participants were analysed to determine which of them were more traumatised than others. To come to the conclusion of who was more traumatised than the other, a comparison of the rating of the Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSC) was done and consideration of all questions was taken. It was then dete1mined how the more traumatised and the less traumatised used the coping strategies to deal with the negative emotions due to rape. This was done by analysing the coping strategies of each participant according to how they responded on each question on the Coping Strategies Inventory (SF). Using means, standard deviations and regression analysis, the results revealed that a high number of rape victims had higher levels of trauma. This was indicated by their high scores on the dissociation, anxiety, depression, sexual abuse trauma index, sleep disturbance and sexual problems subscales of the TSC. Higher percentages of those, rarely engaged in problem focused coping and resorted to emotion focused coping instead. Those who had less trauma were found to be engaging more in problem focused coping. The victims that had less trauma were found to be communicating effectively with other people and were engaging in positive thinking. Those who had high levels of trauma were found to be not interacting effectively with people in their immediate environment which may have influenced their emotion focused coping strategies. The results also revealed that emotional reactions and coping strategies are not affected by age and marital status of rape victims.