“Solely sure means sure” is greater than a slogan, and discussions on what that basically entails are extra pressing now than ever. In a world after #MeToo, it’s tempting to consider that the consent dialog is over, however it isn’t. Solely final yr, 1 in 3 European girls reported having skilled sexual assault, underlining how important it stays to maintain talking about consent (European Union Company for Basic Rights et al., 2024).
For a lot of survivors, the affect doesn’t finish with the assault itself. Regardless of no clear medical trigger, diffuse bodily signs can proceed to happen years after the occasion. Analysis has persistently linked sexual assault with somatic syndromes resembling persistent widespread ache (Ulirsch et al., 2014), and traumatic activation of the stress system can alter neurosensory processing in lasting methods (Quick et al., 2022).
Constructing on this proof, a brand new landmark research from the Danish DanFunD cohort straight examined whether or not sexual assault will increase the danger of growing useful somatic dysfunction (FSD) – an umbrella analysis encompassing Practical Symptomatic Syndromes (FSSs) like persistent widespread ache (CWP), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and persistent fatigue, that trigger substantial incapacity with out identifiable natural causes (Burton et al., 2020; Jacobsen et al., 2025).
Sexual assault has lasting results, and this research asks whether or not these results embrace a better threat of long-term useful somatic issues.
Strategies
The authors used knowledge from a big Danish cohort research to analyze the lifetime historical past of sexual assault at baseline (n = 7493) and see the way it influences the danger for useful somatic dysfunction (FSD) in a 5-year follow-up (n = 4288). FSD signs have been clustered into cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal and fatigue. In addition they differentiated between single-organ and multiorgan FSD. Ten covariates have been chosen, together with organic intercourse, prior somatic ailments, perceived stress.
Two predominant questions have been assessed:
- Query 1: Does sexual assault elevate your threat for useful somatic dysfunction?
- Query 2: Do survivors of sexual assault expertise a better frequency and/or extra extreme incident somatic signs than people not uncovered to sexual assault (i.e., extra signs, and/or worse ones)?
Outcomes
Query 1: Does sexual assault elevate your threat for useful somatic dysfunction?
The brief reply is sure.
- Unadjusted analyses confirmed clear hyperlinks between reporting sexual assault (SA) at baseline and the event of FSD over the 5-year follow-up.
- Adjusting for covariates solely strengthened the case, exhibiting that having skilled SA results in an elevated threat of growing FSD, FSS, in addition to single-organ FSD and CWP.
- Most intriguing is that they discovered a 6-fold elevated threat (RR 6.47) of growing multiorgan FSD. So, not solely does SA contribute to growing FSD and associated issues, but it surely additionally appears to lift one’s threat by fairly a big margin.
Query 2: Do sexual assault survivors expertise extra and/or worse signs?
Once more, the reply seems to be sure.
- Survivors of sexual assault (SA) reported a better frequency of signs throughout all 4 bodily clusters: normal/fatigue, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and cardiopulmonary.
- In comparison with these with out assault publicity, survivors of SA additionally had an as much as 20% larger threat of growing ache of their joints, gastrointestinal signs like belly ache and bloating, and overwhelming fatigue. These signs have been additionally usually reported as extra extreme.
The authors have been additionally within the query: does emotional misery make these bodily signs worse?
- Interplay analyses didn’t help this.
- Baseline emotional misery didn’t reasonable or amplify the SA-FSD connection – which means, the bodily dangers from trauma didn’t appear to be exacerbated by emotional state.
Sexual assault is related to long-term, usually excessive severity bodily symptom patterns that can not be totally accounted for by emotional misery alone.
Conclusions
General, this research delivers a transparent message: sexual assault considerably raises the danger of useful somatic dysfunction (FSD) – spanning a number of bodily methods and growing the general burden of signs. Within the authors phrases:
The outcomes recommend that the results of sexual assault lengthen throughout a number of organ methods, reflecting multiorgan involvement fairly than confinement to 1 organ system.
Whereas FSD signs are additionally a priority within the normal inhabitants, this research highlighted that burden (together with the preliminary threat of improvement) is far larger in individuals who have been sexual assaulted. These conclusions stand in an extended line of proof linking traumatic experiences – like sexual assault – to the later improvement of persistent ache (Bussières et al., 2023).
Traumatic experiences resembling sexual assault seem like linked with broader, multisystem useful signs later in life.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
This research tackles a crucial, well timed query with a population-based Danish cohort that cuts down on choice bias by spanning intercourse, age, and sociodemographics. The end result – useful somatic dysfunction (FSD) – is outlined utilizing the Bodily Misery Syndrome (BDS) framework (Petersen et al., 2020), with subtypes resembling persistent widespread ache (CWP) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) pooled to boost statistical energy (Petersen et al., 2020). The self-reports maintain up effectively, validated by clinician interviews in a subset. Complete confounder changes (e.g., intercourse, prior somatic ailments, perceived stress), sensitivity analyses, sex-stratified outcomes, and a considerable pattern dimension additional enhance the robustness of the findings and strengthen the impression of reliability.
Weaknesses
The pattern’s restriction to Danish residents fluent in Danish limits generalisability and variety. The sexual assault (SA) evaluation relied on solely two objects from the Cumulative Lifetime Adversity Measure (Carstensen et al., 2020), probably overlooking nuanced experiences past their deal with pressured contact or intercourse. Emotional misery, a variable which will play an vital function within the relationship of SA and FSD, was measured solely at baseline, neglecting that it could be of fluctuating nature. The low 5-year follow-up response fee might overestimate FSD incidence, whereas the mounted timeline ignores SA timing, frequency and severity. BDS’s binary categorization (“bothered” vs not) might under-detect milder circumstances. The small male subsample precludes sturdy sex-specific insights, and symptom clustering fairly than particular person evaluation displays energy constraints of the research. Notably, post-SA emotional responses have been unmeasured, introducing potential bias.
General, the proof robustly hyperlinks sexual assault to useful somatic dysfunction, however methodological gaps in variety, measurement nuance, and longitudinal depth warrant replication in broader cohorts.
This research advantages from sturdy design and statistical energy, however is proscribed by measurements that lacked nuance and poor pattern variety.
Implications for follow
Coming again to the place we began: Consciousness and understanding of sexual assault remains to be urgently wanted. This research makes painfully clear that the penalties aren’t solely psychological, however may present up as a heavy, lengthy‑time period bodily burdens.
On the analysis aspect, the findings underline the necessity for bigger, extra various samples, together with extra males, and extra refined strategies of measurement. Future work ought to unpack totally different subtypes of useful somatic dysfunction and useful symptomatic syndromes, and discover their overlap with associated diagnoses resembling somatic symptom dysfunction. Additionally, extra work must be put into revealing the molecular foundation of those phenomena. Understanding the organic pathways underlying the emergence of issues following sexual assault is essential to bettering care and exploring potential protecting components.
On the motion aspect, the message is equally clear: it isn’t sufficient to deal with the aftermath. There’s an pressing have to deal with the basis causes of sexual assault within the first place and to speculate critically in prevention, safety, and trauma‑knowledgeable care. Victims shouldn’t be left alone and be gaslit into believing it’s “all of their heads”.
As addressed at first, 1 in 3 girls has skilled some type of sexual assault. Even when it’s not you, it’s doubtless somebody near you. Elevating consciousness and fostering empathy is essential to shining a light-weight on this hidden epidemic – and our work to finish it.
One in three girls experiences sexual assault. Lengthy-term bodily and psychological impacts of sexual assault demand higher analysis, prevention, and help for survivors.
Assertion of pursuits
Jennifer Reif wrote the primary draft of this weblog and has no competing pursuits to declare. Perplexity.ai was used for language refinement and textual content circulation enchancment.
Editor
Edited by Éimear Foley. AI instruments assisted with language refinement and formatting through the editorial part.
Hyperlinks
Main paper
Jacobsen, Sofie A., Petersen, Marie W., Wellnitz, Kaare B., Ørnbøl, Eva, Dantoft, Thomas M., Jørgensen, Torben, McLean, Samuel A., Frostholm, Lisbeth, & Carstensen, Tina B. W. (2025). Practical Somatic Issues in People With a Historical past of Sexual Assault. JAMA Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2025.3251
Different references
Burton, C., Fink, P., Henningsen, P., Löwe, B., Rief, W., & on behalf of the EURONET-SOMA Group. (2020). Practical somatic issues: Dialogue paper for a brand new frequent classification for analysis and scientific use. BMC Drugs, 18(1), 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-1505-4
Bussières, A., Hancock, M. J., Elklit, A., Ferreira, M. L., Ferreira, P. H., Stone, L. S., Wideman, T. H., Boruff, J. T., Al Zoubi, F., Chaudhry, F., Tolentino, R., & Hartvigsen, J. (2023). Adversarial childhood expertise is related to an elevated threat of reporting persistent ache in maturity: A stystematic evaluation and meta-analysis. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(2), 2284025. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2023.2284025
Carstensen, T. B. W., Ørnbøl, E., Fink, P., Jørgensen, T., Dantoft, T. M., Madsen, A. L., Buhmann, C. C. B., Eplov, L. F., & Frostholm, L. (2020). Adversarial life occasions within the normal inhabitants—A validation of the cumulative lifetime adversity measure. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11(1), 1717824. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2020.1717824
European Union Company for Basic Rights, European Institute for Gender Equality, & European Fee (Hrsg.). (2024). EU gender-based violence survey: Key outcomes: experiences of ladies within the 27 EU Member States. Publications Workplace. https://doi.org/10.2811/6270086
Petersen, M. W., Schröder, A., Jørgensen, T., Ørnbøl, E., Dantoft, T. M., Eliasen, M., Thuesen, B. H., & Fink, P. (2020). The unifying diagnostic assemble of bodily misery syndrome (BDS) was confirmed within the normal inhabitants. Journal of Psychosomatic Analysis, 128, 109868. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2019.109868
Quick, N. A., Tungate, A. S., Bollen, Okay. A., Sullivan, J., D’Anza, T., Lechner, M., Bell, Okay., Black, J., Buchanan, J., Reese, R., Ho, J. D., Reed, G. D., Platt, M. A., Riviello, R. J., Rossi, C. H., Martin, S. L., Liberzon, I., Rauch, S. A. M., Kessler, R. C., … McLean, S. A. (2022). Ache is frequent after sexual assault and posttraumatic arousal/reactivity signs mediate the event of recent or worsening persistent ache. Ache, 163(1), e121–e128. https://doi.org/10.1097/j.ache.0000000000002329
Ulirsch, J. c., Ballina, L. e., Soward, A. c., Rossi, C., Hauda, W., Holbrook, D., Wheeler, R., Foley, Okay. a., Batts, J., Collette, R., Goodman, E., & McLean, S. a. (2014). Ache and somatic signs are sequelae of sexual assault: Outcomes of a potential longitudinal research. European Journal of Ache, 18(4), 559–566. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1532-2149.2013.00395.x
