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A total of 72 women, who had been victims of rape an average of 8 years prior to the study, responded to questionnaires covering the following areas: demographics, assault characteristics, postrape behaviors, coping strategies, and current level of functioning. Even after many years, rape continued to be a serious trauma for these women, resulting in fairly high levels of symptoms across a wide range of problem areas. Individual differences in severity of symptoms were related to age, socioeconomic status, time since rape, force used during the rape, and prior history of sexual assault. Also related to current level of functioning were whether or not rapes were reported to the police and the amount of time women took before confiding in another person. Both approach and avoidant coping strategies were observed to be negatively related to recovery.
Cohen et al. (Tue,) studied this question.