Abstract

BURGOS, Delia et al. Types and severity of partner violence against women living in the community in Cali, Colombia. Rev. salud pública [online]. 2012, vol.14, n.3, pp.377-389. ISSN 0124-0064.

ObjectiveIdentifying the incidence and severity of types of intimate partner vio-lence against women exposed to this in their communities and the pertinent socio-demographic characteristics. MethodologyThis was a cross-sectional descriptive study of 150 women suffering intimate partner violence. The Severity of Violence Against Women Scale was used to explore demographic variables, e.g. age, sex, socioeconomic status, educatio-nal level, marital status and occupation. ResultsMean age was 37 years, 74 % were mestizos, 68 % were living in so-cioeconomic groups 2 and 3, 43 % were living with a permanent partner and 31 % had experienced violence by other people than their intimate partner. There was high exposure (96.3 %) to more than one type of violence; 88% had suffered physical and 53 % sexual threats. All types were correlated with each other (r ranged from 0.42 to 0.84 (p <0.01)). Socioeconomic status had a significant negative correlation with threats of violence (p><0.01) and positive correlation with physical violence (p><0.01); other socio-demographic variables did not correlate.>ConclusionPsychosocial factors are heavily involved in the phenomenon. Scree-ning and intervening in forms of violence other than physical ones means pro-tecting women and reducing the harm being done to them and alleviating their suffering. It is vital that interventions should be undertaken for preventing different types of violence according to socioeconomic group and accompany women and their assailants in recognising such violence and seeking help.

Keywords : Violence against women; sexual violence; hazard; spouse abuse; wo-men.

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