Belgian Sexual Assault Care Centres: Monitoring and Evaluation

Belgian Sexual Assault Care Centres (SACCs) have been established at the end of 2017 in three Belgian hospitals (UMC Brussels, UZ Gent, CHU Liège). The aim of the Belgian federal government is to have at least 10 SACCs in place (one per judicial district) by 2023. The SACCs offer holistic care to victims of sexual violence, including medical and psychological care, a forensic examination and the possibility to report to the police at the SACC. This holistic care is offered both in the direct aftermath of the assault as during follow-up. Care and support is provided by forensic nurses, trauma-psychologists and police inspectors of the SACC. Hospital physician-specialists support the SACC personnel in these tasks. Monitoring and evaluation of the SACCs is necessary to both ensure: a) epidemiological follow-up of sexual violence by monitoring the profile of victims of sexual violence and the characteristics of the sexual violence; b) good quality of care to victims by monitoring the effects of sexual violence on the physical, mental, sexual and reproductive and health of the victims, and the care/treatment provided at the SACC and in other hospital services linked to the SACC care. To allow evaluation of the pilot year of the SACCs, the 3 hospitals involved have gathered data through their electronic patient files and transferred these data to UGent for analysis and reporting. In light of the scale-up of the SACCs it is necessary to identify simplified and manageable processes for data-collection, -transfer, -storage, -validation and -analysis. This data collection should allow further optimization of the sexual assault care centres and enable the implementation of effective preventive and curative policies regarding sexual violence.