[Evaluation of prevalence of domestic violence and its role on mental health]

ABSTRACT

Domestic violence against women is a subject with considerable attention and as an important public health problem worldwide, and despite numerous studies about the consequences of domestic violence on women's mental health, there are still many unknown aspects. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of domestic violence and its role mental health in women referred to health centers under the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services in 2010-2011. A cross-sectional multistage cluster sample survey was performed on 500 patients who were referred to health centers of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and health services. In this study were age range between 15-65years and lack of depression during the life. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire on violence and SCL90. Woman was considered violated when she had given at least 1 positive answer to the related question. The data were analyzed by descriptive analysis of SPSS and chi-square and Mann Whitney test. The result showed that%84.8 [424 cases] of women have experienced different types of domestic violence in life. The emotional violence with the%81.2 had the highest prevalence, and sexual and physical violence [%41.8 and%40.4 respectively] were the next category. Comparison mental state of two groups of abused and non-abused women based on nine subscales of the original SCL-90 and General Severity Index [GSI] showed that in all dimensions, the violent group's scores were much higher than the non-violent group's scores. Mann-Whitney test was showed significant differences in 9 primary symptom dimension subscales somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychosis [P<0.01]. Domestic Violence against women persists at epidemic levels in Iran and it appears to have considerable compact on field of mental health