Adult Rape Survivors' Experience of Self-Disclosure to Significant others at Mamelodi Hospitals Crisis Centre
Keywords:
Adult Rape Survivors, Experience of Self-Disclosure, Mamelodi Hospitals, worldwide phenomenonSynopsis
This study explored adult rape survivors’ experience of self-disclosure to significant others at Mamelodi Hospital Rape Crisis Centre. Rape is a worldwide phenomenon that is reported daily, drawing attention to its devastating effects on rape survivors, their families and communities. A qualitative exploratory descriptive research design was employed. The researcher chose to utilise purposive sampling for this research study whereby individuals who experienced a rape and who were seeking treatment at the Mamelodi Hospital Rape Crisis Centre were interviewed on their experiences of self-disclosure to their significant others. An in-depth face-to-face semi-structured interview was utilised to collect data from the eight participants who participated in the research study. Data was analysed through content analysis following the Tesch Model of content analysis (Creswell,
1994). Results indicated that that five of the participants chose to disclose their rape experience to their mothers, four participants chose to disclose to their boyfriends and six participants chose to disclose their rape experience to their best friends. The motivating factors that encouraged disclosure were trust and a close emotional relationship. Although seven of the
participants feared judgement and blame from their significant others, the motivating factors was seen as a stronger contributing factor for their disclosure. The participants also indicated that they were very apprehensive about the feedback they anticipated to receive if they would disclose their rape experience to others in their community and feared judgement, blame and stigmatization from them. Further results from this research study indicated that three
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July 5, 2023
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