Suicide attempts associated with sexual violence: Women – Ecuador

Abstract

Objective

Determine the incidence of suicide attempts in women exposed to sexual violence in Ecuador.

Materials

We applied a transversal descriptive study accomplished by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC). The INEC recruited Ecuadorian women from 15-years-old and ahead, the surveys were focused on this population. Eighteen thousand and eight hundred (18,800) rural and urban housings were selected all over the country, 24 provinces. Date of the survey: November 16–December 15 of 2011. The sample included 737 women of several marital status (single, married and separated woman) who reported had been victims of sexual violence.

Results

The average age of the sample was 28-years-old. The standard deviation was 21 years, ages: 15–25 years old: 14.265 (21.6%), 25–35-years-old: 9.324 (14.1%), 35–45-years-old: 8.132 (12.3%), 45–55-years-old: 6.283 (9.5%), 55–65-years-old: 4.302 (6.5%) and > 65 years old: 23.745 (35.9%). The incidence of women who had attempted suicide due to sexual violence was 73.95% (545 of 737 women surveyed). According to the marital status, the incidence was 79.3% on single, 65.5% on married and 79.0% on separated women.

Conclusion

The rate of suicide attempts in Ecuadorian women undergoing situations of sexual violence is very elevated. The traumatic incident in descending order according to the classification by marital status is: single, separated and married. It was identified the population of unmarried women in our society to be the most vulnerable to develop suicidal behaviors (8 out of 10 women). However, we must keep in mind that these statistics could be even higher due to the fear and rejection to expose personal traumatic experiences in conservative societies such as the Ecuadorian. These results represent a powerful call to the Mental Health Systems. They must increase protection and follow-up programs on sexually abused women in Ecuador and other Latin-American countries.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.