Personal awareness of domestic violence: implications for health care providers

To estimate how many Californians know a victim of domestic violence, to examine their knowledge of certain characteristics of the violence, and to estimate and examine such knowledge among specific demographic groups.

A total of 3713 California adults (similar numbers of whites, blacks, Hispanics, Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and other Asian Americans) completed a random-digit-dial interview. Respondents were asked whether a friend, relative, or coworker had been threatened or harmed by an intimate partner. Weights were applied to the cross-sectional sample to obtain estimates for the general population. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regressions were used with the full sample.

Nearly half (45.5%) of the adult general population of California knows a victim of domestic violence (DV); 40.5% know a woman and 5.0% know a man. More than one-third of the population (35.7%) knew the victim while the abuse was happening. Although 86.5% of those who reported knowing a DV victim indicated that the victim incurred physical harm, only 18.3% of the injured victims were reported to have sought medical care. Gender was the most consistent respondent predictor: Men were less likely to know someone who was a victim of DV and to have specific information about the violence. Ethnic differences were fewer, but distinctions among groups were documented.

Knowing a victim of DV is common among California adults. Implications for medical practice are discussed in terms of the ethnicity, gender, and work force status of the population served and geographic location of the medical practice.