An exploratory study carried out with 525 students from all over the country of Higher Education entitled “Image-based sexual abuse”, and recently defended at the University of Porto, reveals that more than half of the people (52.22%) who sent 'nudes' ( photographic images and or videos of a sexual nature) on the Internet or mobile phone, say that they did not have the "perception of the risk they were taking" and 8.78% of the people in the sample assume that they were "the target of threats".

Of the interviewees who sent 'nudes', 5% assumed that they suffered victimization of sexual violence 'online' ", that is, they were victims of unauthorized sharing to third parties, one of the data that the psychologist and author of the study, Patrícia Ribeiro, highlighted most.

The three biggest impacts of ‘sexting’ (sending sexually suggestive texts and images with explicit sexual content) were humiliation (17.39%), shame (15.22%) and despair (13.04%).

According to the study, 70.32% of the cases in which images of a sexual nature or 'nude selfies' (sending photographs and / or videos of nudes on the Internet) are sent to another person, the main recipient of these images is a partner.

About 60% of university students in the sample said they had received images of a sexual nature and 41.90% said they had sent such images.