Domestic violence and women’s health

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of physical and sexual forms of domestic violence against women and its outcomes in health. Methods: The study was carried  out in São Paulo, Brazil, with a sample of 1343 women aged 15 to 49 years old among users of 12 public primary care health services. Results: As regards the prevalence of physical and/or sexual violence, 50.2% of the women (95% CI=47.5-52.9%) reported the occurrence of at least one epysode in their lives, being the intimate partner the agressor in the most of the cases (57.2%). 46,8% of the participants (95% CI=44.1-49.5%) had experienced domestic violence at some time in their lives, 27.9% had only experienced physical violence, 4.5% had only experienced sexual violence, 14.4% had experienced both physical and sexual forms.
Conclusions: Physical and sexual violence presented high magnitude among the female users. In addition, the relevance of domestic violence was pointed out, mainly in the scope of
the intimate partner abuse, what indicates the importance of the study in the field of preventive medicine.