This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Catherine A. Martin, MD; Mary Cabel Warfield, MA, MS; G. Richard Braen, MD

JAMA. 1983;249(4):501-503.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

RAPE IS reported to be the fastestgrowing violent crime,¹ and it is estimated that one of six women will be raped in her lifetime.² Because of the increasing frequency of rape and accompanying severe emotional and physical trauma, the physician should be able to be sensitive to the psychological needs of the rape victim. This article discusses the psychological sequelae of rape and provides guidelines on how to lessen the psychological trauma, so that the rape victim will be able to better cope with this devastating experience.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Many rape victims may suffer from a post-traumatic stress disorder. This is defined in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III)³ as the development of characteristic symptoms after the experiencing of a psychologically traumatic event or events outside the range of human experience usually considered to be normal. The characteristic symptoms . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Psychiatry (Dr Martin) and Emergency Medicine (Dr Braen), the University of Kentucky College of Medicine; and the Lexington Rape Crisis Center (Ms Warfield), Lexington.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to Department of Psychiatry, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, 800 Rose St, Lexington, KY 40536 (Dr Martin).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?