University and Community Resources for Sexual Assault Survivors: Familiarity With and Use of Services Among College Students

ABSTRACT

Scholars have highlighted the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. Universities are generally equipped to address victimization through a range of resources, including counseling and psychological services. These resources are instrumental for posttrauma recovery, but students must be aware of and willing to use available services. This study used a sample of 505 survey responses collected at a mid-sized, public, Southern university regarding community and campus resource knowledge, familiarity, and service use. The majority of participants were unaware of resources. Females reported increased community resource familiarity compared to males. Multivariate models revealed distress disclosure, sexual victimization history, and race were significant predictors of service use but criminal justice major and law enforcement career plans were not significant. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• College students
• resources
• service use
• sexual assault
• victimization

Competing interests

The authors do not have competing interests to report.

Notes

1. Sexual assault encompasses a wide array of sexually predatory victimization experiences, including unwanted and/or coerced sexual contact, incapacitated attempted or completed rape, intoxicated or drug-induced attempted or completed rape, and attempted or completed rape as a result of threats of force or use of force.

2. The data collection instrument used in this analysis did not capture active military status among participants, though ROTC affiliation was included and results demonstrated 3.2% of the sample was involved in university ROTC. A series of screening analyses not presented in tabular form were employed to determine if significant differences existed between ROTC affiliates and independent students on main study variables. Results indicated no significant differences. As a result, ROTC membership has been included in the sample description but was not retained for additional analyses.

3. This item was taken directly from Hayes-Smith and Levett (2010). Participants were not provided with additional contextual information nor were they primed regarding what “information” the item was referring to, following the lead of Hayes-Smith and Levett (2010).

4. The question specified the particular university at which the survey was administered.