Prevalence of intimate partner violence and injuries--Washington, 1998

Approximately 20% of emergency department visits for trauma and 25% of homicides of women involve intimate partner violence (IPV) (1,2). To assess IPV prevalence in Washington, the Washington State Department of Health added questions from the Conflict Tactics Scale (3) and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (4) to its 1998 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey. This report describes an analysis of responses to the questions, which indicated that women were more likely than men to experience IPV in their lifetime, and more than three times more likely than men to experience injuries from IPV.