Dental care – an emotional and physical challenge for the sexually abused

Abstract

The aim was to explicate persistent psychological and bodily memories of sexual abuse and how they are expressed during dental appointments. The participants comprised 13 sexually abused individuals (11 women), who recalled and expressed these experiences during a dental appointment. They were encouraged to describe, in detail, aspects of the appointment which triggered memories of the sexual abuse. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using Qualitative Content Analysis. The identified overall theme illustrating the latent content was ‘An echo of sexual abuse transformed into (dys) functional reactions’. The first category covering the manifest content was ‘The inner invisible struggle’, with two subcategories: (i) mental inscriptions of the abuse experience; and (ii) consequences of the dental encounter. The second category was ‘The discoverable manifestations’, with two subcategories: (i) enigmatic communication; and (ii) expressions of bodily memories. The dental appointment arouses similar psychological stressful reactions as the episodes of abuse; both implicit and explicit expressions are recognizable. Dental staff can contribute to disclosure by improved understanding of the strain a dental appointment can cause in patients who have been subjected to sexual abuse and familiarity with the associated bodily expressions.