Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This article was submitted to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Sexual abuse is a major public health problem. The objective of this metasynthesis, combining a systematic review and an analysis of the qualitative studies, was to explore the qualitative literature concerning the experience of a survivor disclosing sexual violence experienced in childhood to a health professional, from the perspective of both.
This review includes 20 articles, covering the data of participants: who were adults at the time of the study but abused in childhood, minors, 14 parents of adolescents, and healthcare professionals.
Two themes emerged from the analysis: 1 the disclosure as experienced by the professionals, and 2 the disclosure as experienced by the survivors. Our results show that survivors had a diachronic approach to the experience of disclosure. They suggest a change over time in how survivors experience disclosure: relief and release were seen only among the adult participants, at a distance from β long after β the disclosure.
This study made it possible to identify new perspectives for research in the field of child psychiatry and to formulate concrete clinical proposals, in particular, by applying the principle of patient experts to involve now-adult survivors in training and increase the awareness of the healthcare professionals concerned.
