Intimate partner violence reported by female and male users of healthcare units

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To analyze nonfatal violence suffered and committed by adult men and women,in an intimate relationship.METHODS: The participants in the research were women aged between 15 and 49 years andmen between 18 and 60 years, interviewed by face-to-face questionnaire application. The sampleselection was of consecutive type, according to the order of arrival of the users. We conductedtemporarily independent investigations and covered different health services to avoid couples andrelationships in which the retaliation could be overvalued. To improve the comparison, we alsoexamined reports of men and women from the same service, i.e., a service that was common toboth investigations. We compared the situations suffered by women according to their reportsand cross-linked the information to what men, according to their own reports, do againstintimate partners or ex-partners. We also examined the cross-linked situation in reverse: theviolence committed by women against their partners, according to their reports, in comparisonwith the violence suffered by men, also according to their reports, even if, in this case, the examrefers only to physical violence. The variables were described using mean, standard deviation,frequencies and proportions, and the hypothesis testing used was: Fisher’s exact and Pearson’sChi-square tests, adopting a significance level of 5%.RESULTS: Victimization was greater among women, regardless of the type of violence, whenperpetrated by intimate partner. The perception of violence was low in both genders; however,women reported more episodes of multiple recurrences of any violence and sexual abuse sufferedthan men acknowledged to have perpetrated.CONCLUSIONS: The study in its entirety shows significant gender differences, whether aboutthe prevalence of violence, whether about the perception of these situations.