O-16 Self-reported experience of sexual, physical, and verbal violence among university students in Barbados during the COVID-19 pandemic
Author(s):
MH Campbell , T Whitby-Best , NS Greaves , MK Emmanuel , PS Chami , SG Anderson
Year of Presentation:
2024
Objective: To examine violence reported by university students in Barbados on the National College Health Assessment (NCHA), a standardised measure of tertiary students’ health status, behaviours, and use of health systems.
Methods: The NCHA was distributed online to all current students at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, from October 2021 to March 2022. Standardized items asked students to indicate their experience of sexual, physical, and verbal violence in and outside of partnered relationships.
Results: 649 students responded to the survey; response rate was approximately 10% (acccounting for enrollment fluctuation). The most reported type of violence was verbal abuse by an intimate partner, by almost 15% of respondents. The second most common was verbal threat (not from a partner), which approximately 10% of students had experienced in the past year. Rates of more severe violence, such as forced sexual contact (1.4%) and physical violence (2.3%) from intimate partners, were relatively lower but of serious concern . Women were significantly more likely to experience of unwanted sexual touch outside of intimate relationships.
Conclusion: No participants rated their QOL as very poor or poor (‘1’ or ‘2’), 8 participants selected ‘3’ (assigned label neither poor nor good), 18 participants selected ‘4’ (assigned label good), and 8 participants selected ‘5’ (very good). Most (82.35%) of the qualitative responses aligned with the quantitative responses. Future studies will compare this outcome among populations that did and did not experience childhood CP.