BALTIMORE, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Sexual assault nurse examiners are the first line of care for most of the one in five women reporting a sexual attack, U.S. researchers say.
Associate Professor Daniel J. Sheridan and doctoral student Jocelyn C. Anderson of The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing conducted a literature search and found female genital injuries are seen in both forced and consensual sex, leading the authors to urge sexual assault nurse examiners to exercise "extreme caution" in their reports about the cause of the injury.
"There is no way to tell by the actual examination if the trauma was from consensual or non-consensual sex," Sheridan says in a statement.
Medical histories taken by sexual assault nurse examiners often become evidence in legal sexual assault cases, the researchers say.
"To provide the most complete care, sexual assault nurse examiners must thoroughly document patient histories as well as physical findings, including, but not limited to genital injury status," Anderson says.
The study, Female Genital Injury Following Consensual and Non-consensual Sex: State of the Science, is published in the Journal of Emergency Nursing.
