[Knowledge of gender-based violence in the population seen in primary care]

To determine the knowledge and attitudes towards gender-based violence in the Primary Care patient population and their relationship with sociodemographic factors and personal experience.

A descriptive, cross-sectional study.

Urban Health Centres.

Patients ≥18 years-old who were seen in a Primary Care clinic.

A questionnaire was used that included questions associated with knowledge, attitudes and experience of gender-based violence in the domestic environment. Variables such as, age, sex, education level, marital state were recorded, as well as the detection of personal experiences of Gender-Based Violence using the short Woman Abuse Screening Tool (WAST).

A total of 673 people, from 18-86 years, responded, of which 68% were women. Only 18.2% had sufficient knowledge on who is considered to exercise gender-based violence. Half of the participants believed that gender-based violence included physical and psychological injuries, inhibition of freedom and rape. In the logistic regression analysis an independent relationship was found with the knowledge of the correct response on what is gender-based violence by marital state, being less likely in married people as regards widowers (OR: 0.28; CI 95%: 0.11-0.72), to consider that gender-based violence involves physical injury (OR: 2.55; CI 95%: 1.28-5.08), but not psychological injury (OR: 0.52; CI 95%: 0.28-0.96), and not giving the correct response on what is domestic violence (OR:0.06; CI 95%: 0.03-0.12).

There is a wide variation in the results as regards what patients believe gender-based violence is and what aspects it covers.