Evaluation of incest cases in Sivas: Ten-year retrospective study

Abstract

Although incest is generally perceived as all kinds of verbal, non-verbal, physical and visual sexual behaviour of family members and close relatives toward children, it is also a special type of sexual abuse defined as consensual sexual intercourse between close relatives or between minors who are legally prohibited from marrying. This study aimed to analyse the sociodemographic data, physical-mental examination and laboratory findings of the incest cases. Incest cases among sexual abuse and sexual assault cases sent to Sivas Cumhuriyet University Hospital Forensic Medicine outpatient clinic for examination between 2012 and 2021 were evaluated. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the SPSS 23.0 program. P-values below 0.05 were considered significant. The records of 61 incest victims were retrospectively analysed. The cases were examined in terms of age, gender, incident, perpetrator, type of abuse, examination findings and mental status. Fifty-four (88.5%) of the incest victims were female, and the highest rate (n = 9, 14.8%) was 16 years old. Most of the victims were high school graduates (29%), 56% were in a nuclear family 57.4% of the assailants were family members, most of the case reports (73.8%) were made by the victim herself/himself, and the most common place of incident (70.3%) was the victim's home. In this study, the clinical, social and forensic outcomes of incest cases, which have many causes and tragic consequences, were investigated, and it was aimed to contribute to the solution of the problem by discussing the literature.