Sexual assault patterns among women with and without disabilities seeking survivor services

The primary research questions were 1) how do sexual assault patterns differ for women with disabilities as compared with women without disabilities and 2) how do patterns differ among women with different disabilities?

Study data were derived from initial encounters of 16,672 women survivors of sexual assault who sought state-funded sexual assault survivor services in Massachusetts from 1987 through 1995. Bivariate analyses and fixed effects logistic regression models compared sexual assault patterns including survivor responses for women with and without disabilities and among women with 5 different single disabilities.

More than 10% of survivors reported > or =1 disability. If a woman had a history of a previous assault or was > or =30 at time of assault, she was significantly more likely to report a disability as compared to the referents (no history of assault or <30). Among women with a single disability, a survivor who delayed seeking services > or =6 months was more likely to have a mental health disability. In contrast, a survivor who had a cognitive disability was more likely to report sooner than 6 months compared with a survivor with other single disabilities.

Differences were found between disabled and nondisabled groups as well as among women with different single disabilities. Some findings, such as those suggesting differential access, may require disability group-specific interventions, whereas other variations can be addressed at the individual client level. State-funded sexual assault survivor service providers may use these findings to improve outreach and service provision strategies.