The psychosocial repercussions of domestic violence in battered women

This study is trying to record the consequences of domestic violence to the mental health of abused women. The tools that were used were the following: PCL-S and GHQ. The research was conducted by B΄Psychiatric Clinic of Attica General Hospital in collaboration with the National Centre of Social Solidarity and the WIN HELLAS (NGO). The victims did not have any diagnosed mental disorder before the present study. Concerning the form of violence that they had gone through, 33% of the victims had suffered psychological abuse, 30% has suffered physical abuse and the 16% sexual abuse, while 20% of the victims has suffered all the above forms of violence. As arises from the preliminary results of our research, 60% of the victims presented symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder while 46% from the above percentage presented chronic PTSD. Regarding to the state of their psychosomatic health, 40% of victims has declared that during the last two weeks they felt worse than usual. More specifically, 60% feels a physical discomfort, 73% of victims presents reduction in functionalism while 56% seems to have stress symptoms. Finally 53% of victims show symptoms of depressions. By referring to the duration of abuse, 72% of total victims declared that had suffered violence during the last months; while 13% of total declared that they were being abused for more than five years.1,2.