Intimate partner violence in a group of severe mentally ill women

Abstract

Due to their importance frequency and quality of intimate partner violence were recorded in a group of 89 severely mentally ill women in an exploratory investigation. With the help of the "Partner Violence Screen" (PVS) and the "Index of Spouse Abuse" (ISA) frequency and severity of intimate partner violence were quantified. Due to data structure nonparametric statistical methods were used for hypothesis testing. The rate of in intimate-partner violence was approximately 67 % in both instruments. Based on the ISA sum-scores intimate partner violence showed associations with lower educational, occupational, and social levels, main-diagnoses of addiction and schizophrenia, longer course of the illness, a higher number of children, and own experience of violence in adolescence. Despite methodological limitations - such as missing control group, highly selected group, and non-involvement of the male partners - the results show the importance of intimate partner violence in severely mentally ill women. The findings presented indicate that intimate partner violence should be taken into consideration in each individual case.