One thousand one hundred and fifty-two students were included. The mean age was Since the beginning of their healthcare study, The main consequences of GBV on health was psychological and eating related. GBV is so common at healthcare universities and could have such severe consequences for students that more work is needed to generate a culture change and ensure safe learning environments.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. GBV is a somewhat more inclusive term than violence against women. It can be physical, emotional, psychosocial and sexual in nature. Prevalence rates have varied greatly, mainly due to differences in definitions, the reporting period measured, sampling strategies, and the measures used [ 2 ]. Studies measured different forms of sexual victimisation separately e. The particularity of health students is that the strong hierarchical relationships and patriarchal history, the long hours of service, the high levels of tension and the many opportunities for intimacy promote sexual violence.
The first major study among medical students was conducted in the early s [ 4 ]. Female medical students were twice more likely than non-science, technology, engineering and math majors to experience sexual harassment by faculty or staff [ 5 ]. A meta-analysis reported a prevalence for harassment and discrimination during undergraduate medical training and clerkship of The majority of studies focused predominantly on white, female undergraduate students [ 7 , 8 ]. Few studies were conducted among healthcare students and mainly medical students [ 10 , 11 ].
It is not known whether health study fields are particularly at risk of GBV. The French minister of higher education and research promotes GBV research among students in [ 12 ]. Sexually harassed students have been shown to be more likely to engage in risky behaviours, such as increased drug use, problematic drinking behaviours, sexual risk-taking and sexual dysfunction [ 13 β 15 ]. Students who experience GBV are more likely to skip class, get lower grades, switch programs or drop out altogether [ 16 ].
