As mentioned above, the purpose of this study is to examine the risk and protective factors linked to PTG in female victims of sexual violence. The proposed systematic review aims to answer the following research question: What are the most apparent risk and protective factors associated with PTG in women who have experienced sexual violence? Diverse studies are available on different aspects of PGT and associated treatment interventions, but there is a lack of a synthesized analysis of the available data (Lahav et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2019). Systematic reviews have been a common type of research that concentrates on summarizing existing literature based on particular research questions and clear methodology (Riley et al., 2019).
This type of study was introduced and developed in the 1970s (Munn et al., 2018). The major components of this approach include the focus on specific aspects of a problem, explicitly defined eligibility criteria, detailed description of the methodology, the evaluation of the validity of the sources, and profound synthesis. Systematic reviews tend to include all consistent with the pre-defined criteria, including cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies, as well as reviews.
This systematic review will involve the analysis of the types of studies mentioned above. Some systematic reviews and meta-analyses on PTG have been published, but they tend to concentrate on a wider population (Henson et al., 2020). This approach will be instrumental in identifying the latest discoveries and some trends in research related to post-traumatic growth among females who have faced sexual abuse. The screening process will involve reading the abstracts of articles and their further reading in full as they are found appropriate for the current research. This element of systematic reviews enables the researcher to cover a considerable number of studies and include the most relevant ones.
One of the primary selection criteria is the date of publication, and the focus may be on different periods. At present, researchers pay much attention to the use of the most recent data and updating reviews constantly (Elliott et al., 2017). The present systematic review concentrates on the articles published during the period between 2016 and 2021. It is critical to identify the most recent data on risk and protective factors associated with PTG in female victims of sexual violence, so the articles published during the past five years will be included.
Another important criterion associated with the proposed systematic review is linguistic, as the articles published in English exclusively will be examined. It is noteworthy that the country where the research is implemented and the nationality or ethnicity of the participants will not be a selection measurement. This review aims at identifying the recent advances related to the post-traumatic growth framework on the global scale, so no geographic limits will be set.
As far as the types of studies to be included in this systematic review, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies will be analyzed. Longitudinal research contributes to the development of the understanding of trends that appear over time, the efficiency of treatment strategies, the prevalence of certain disorders, and similar aspects (Cockcroft et al., 2019). Cross-sectional studies provide recent data associated with the latest discoveries and the newest approaches (Coolican, 2017).
These researches tend to concentrate on a particular population and a specific problem or aspect of an issue (Arabaci et al., 2018). In this case, the articles concerned with the risk and protective factors of PTG among females who have experienced sexual violence will be included. Specific attention will be paid to different cohorts that may include women sexually abused in childhood or adolescence, female victims of romantic partners’ sexual abuse, female veterans who experienced sexual violence, individuals with mental health issues.
The databases searched for studies in English will be Cochrane, PubMed, PsycINFO, and ScienceDirect. The search terms will include the following words and phrases, as well as combinations of these keywords: post-traumatic growth (PTG), female victim, sexual violence, sexual abuse, resilience, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although PTSD is different from PTG, this health condition is often compared to PTG and analyzed in relation to this framework (Mattson et al., 2018).
Therefore, post-traumatic stress disorder will also be used as a keyword to locate potentially valuable articles. The target population of this research is adult female victims of sexual abuse, so the sample will include female victims of sexual violence aged between 25 and 45 years old. It is noteworthy that the age of exposure to violence will not be an exclusion criterion. Finally, the stopping rule regarding the search will be applied (Xiao & Watson, 2017). According to this rule of thumb, the search of articles stops when the same references appear as search results and no new data can be found.
Various types of technologies are utilized to implement systematic reviews these days (Marshall & Wallace, 2019). This review will be based on the manual thematic analysis of the chosen studies consistent with the inclusion criteria. As mentioned above, the focus will be on risk and protective factors associated with PTG in women abused sexually. At the same time, this systematic review will also shed light on other prevalent aspects mentioned in the chosen articles.
Systematic reviews often highlight the methods employed in the analyzed articles (De Graaff et al., 2018). The present systematic review will also include an analysis of some aspects of methodology to identify the existing trends and potential gaps if any. The most recurrent themes related to the purpose of this analysis will be identified and categorized where appropriate. The categorization is a common tool that is instrumental in exploring the most apparent trends in the current knowledge base (Hammersley, 2019). The categories will be analyzed to synthesize the data provided in the reviewed articles.
Systematic reviews encompass the analysis of the relevance of the included sources. Several criteria should be met to identify an article as relevant for the purpose of the given systematic review (Newman & Gough, 2019). The articles are regarded as relevant if they respond to the research question posed in terms of the systematic review. The methodology of the reviewed articles is also assessed in terms of its validity and reliability (Xiao & Watson, 2017). Several instruments to estimate the quality of the research have been developed.
Some of these tools are designed for specific types of studies (randomized controlled trials or meta-analyses), while others can be utilized to evaluate all major types of studies. The CARS Checklist is one of such measurements that will be employed in terms of the current systematic review (Xiao & Watson, 2017). This checklist covers such components as credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support. The use of such sound quality measurements will ensure the use of reliable and valid findings, which is critical for the implementation of a systematic review.
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