“You Should Tell Somebody”: A Survivor Stories Blog Project to Motivate Sexual Assault Victims

Sexual assault victims often do not disclose their assaults or seek positive health outcomes. The RAINN Survivor Stories project shares testimonials in the form of online blogs from sexual assault survivors to motivate and encourage others to come forward and disclose their assaults. This study aimed to better understand the themes present in the survivor stories to motivate victims to disclose their assaults and seek positive health outcomes.

A theoretical thematic analysis was conducted on blog posts created for the project to identify (a) how the posts tell survivor stories and (b) how the posts model positive health outcomes using social cognitive theory and the disclosure processes model as a guide.