Improving Health-seeking Behavior and Care among Sexual Violence Survivors in Rural Tanzania

The aim of this thesis was to assess the effects of providing community education and training to healthcare workers to improve community response, healthcare and support for rape survivors in the Kilombero district of Tanzania. The overall design of the project was to begin with an exploratory study (Paper I) to establish the community’s perceptions towards sexual violence and their perceived recommendations to address this issue. Using a structured questionnaire, the community’s knowledge and attitudes towards sexual violence were determined along with their associations with demographic factors (Paper II). Papers III and IV assessed the effect of healthcare workers’ training and a community information package, respectively, using a controlled quasi-experimental design. The findings highlighted the social norms and variety of barriers that impacted negatively on the survivors’ care-seeking from support services and health outcomes. Increasing age and higher education were associated with better knowledge and less accepting attitudes towards sexual violence. Training on the management of sexual violence was effective in improving healthcare workers’ knowledge and practice but not attitude. Knowledge on sexual violence among the communities in the intervention and comparison areas increased significantly over the study period; from 57.3% to 80.6% in the intervention area and from 55.5% to 71.9% in the comparison area. In the intervention area, women had significantly less knowledge than men at baseline (53% Vs 64%, p<.001).There was a reduction, though not significantly, in acceptance attitudes from 28.1% to 21.8% in favor of women. In conclusion, the current intervention provides evidence that healthcare workers’ training and community education is effective in improving knowledge but not attitudes towards sexual violence. The findings have potential implications for interventions aimed at preventing and responding to violence. The broader societal norms that hinder rape disclosure need to be re-addressed