Are All Substance-Involved Sexual Assaults Alike? A Comparison of Victim Alcohol Use, Drug Use, and Combined Substance Use in Sexual Assaults

Abstract

Sexual assaults involving victim substance use at the time of the assault are common, but little is known about how different types of substances used at the time of the assault impact post-assault outcomes. The current study sought to compare victim alcohol use, drug use, and combined substance use in sexual assaults among a community sample of 693 victims. It was hypothesized that victims in the combined substance use assault type would report overall worse post-assault outcomes, more contextual and interpersonal traumas, and higher assault severity. Our results partially confirmed these hypotheses, but victims in the drug-involved assault type group overall reported higher assault severity and worse post-assault outcomes. These findings are probably partially attributed to the demographic characteristics of victims in the drug-only group (e.g., Black victims) who are more likely to experience a higher severity of violence. Implications for future research and policy regarding drug decriminalization are discussed.

Keywords:

• sexual assault
• alcohol and drugs
• PTSD
• substance misuse

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge Cynthia Najdowski, Liana Peter-Hagene, Mark Relyea, Amanda Vasquez, Meghna Bhat, Rannveig Sigurvinsdottir, Rene Bayley, Gabriela Lopez, Farnaz Mohammad-Ali, Saloni Shah, Susan Zimmerman, Diana Acosta, Shana Dubinsky, Brittany Tolar, and Edith Zarco for assistance with data collection.

Notes

1 A few participants in the open-ended prompt mentioned they thought they may have been drugged. While the question was intended to measure voluntary substance use (“Were you using any intoxicants on this occasion?”), we acknowledge that the inability to control for involuntary substance use is a limitation of the current study.

2 We ran our analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA) to also control for CSA. With this added control variable, some of our significant results were no longer significant (age, level of injury, level of resistance, PTSD total scores, PTSD numbing symptoms, and MAST total scores), but level of violence, level of impairment, CESD mean scores, PTSD arousal symptoms, maladaptive coping, positive individual coping, and DAST total scores remained significant (CESD mean scores and PTSD arousal symptoms only remained significant in the univariate comparisons).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant [R01 #17429] to Sarah E. Ullman.