Abstract
BackgroundExperiences of abuse are common among women in general psychiatric care. Even so, there are to our knowledge no previous national or international studies exploring disclosure in a general psychiatric setting of female patient’s experiences of abuse to staff or to formal and informal networks.This study aimed to explore women’s disclosure of experiencing physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse during their most recent contact with staff at a general psychiatric clinic. The study also aimed to determine whether the women have previously disclosed abuse to anyone.MethodsA consecutive sampling of eligible female patients at a general psychiatric clinic in an urban area of southern Sweden answered the NorVold Abuse Questionnaire, NorAQ, a self-administrated questionnaire. NorAQ has previously been used and further developed to compare the prevalence of abuse in women present in gynecological outpatient settings in the five Nordic countries. Seventy-seven women with experiences of abuse participated in the research. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data.ResultsMost respondents did not disclose their experiences of abuse to staff at the general psychiatric clinic. Women with experiences of physical abuse (n = 40), emotional abuse (n = 37) and sexual abuse (n = 37) chose not to disclose their experiences. Respondents disclosed abuse more often to others than to staff.ConclusionsOur findings indicated the importance of including routine questions concerning abuse experiences as a natural part of female patients’ medical history.
Highlights
Experiences of abuse are common among women in general psychiatric care
The results show that according to the questions asked in the questionnaire, a majority of the women in the study chose not to disclose experiences of abuse to staff at the general psychiatric clinic
Experiences of physical abuse was the most common form of abuse experienced by respondents (93 % n = 72), but more than half of the women did not talk to the general psychiatric clinic staff about their experiences (n = 40)
Summary
Experiences of abuse are common among women in general psychiatric care. Even so, there are to our knowledge no previous national or international studies exploring disclosure in a general psychiatric setting of female patient’s experiences of abuse to staff or to formal and informal networks. This study aimed to explore women’s disclosure of experiencing physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse during their most recent contact with staff at a general psychiatric clinic. According to the first national study concerning violence against women in Sweden, 46 % of all women in Sweden have experienced physical or/and sexual violence or/and verbal threats from a man after the age of 15 [1]. Another study reported that 20 % of general psychiatric patients had been victimized within 1 year prior to participation in the study; the research found it is more common for victimized women to seek psychiatric care than for women with no experience of violence [9]. A study conducted in psychiatric out-patient care reported that 67 % of the male and female patients with psychosis had experienced violence during their childhood. A parent or sibling was the most frequent perpetrator (63 %) [11]
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