Domestic violence: family problem and public health concern

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To determine the attitude towards, experiences of, and reasons given for domestic violence by a sampled population in Trinidad and the proportion of the abused that had interacted with the health services in relation to their domestic violence experience. DESIGN AND METHODS: Two hundred adults, > or = 18 years were selected from two communities, namely Barataria and Enterprise, using a stratified random cluster sampling technique. One hundred persons were interviewed in each community using 105 structured and open-ended questions. RESULTS: There were approximately equal numbers of persons of African and Indian descent and their ages ranged from 18 to 64 years. Twenty-seven percent of the sample had lived in homes in which there was domestic abuse in their childhood. Thirty-one persons (16 percent) experienced domestic violence in adulthood and most (77 percent) were women. First hand experience of domestic violence in adulthood by the 3 ethnic groups was not statistically significant (p=0.2257). Some of the abused were physically injured and needed to be treated by health professionals but approximately 40 percent did not discuss the true cause of their injuries. CONCLUSION: The issue of secrecy tends to shroud the problem of domestic violence. More studies need to be done on the subject to identify definitively the risks factors for domestic violence especially against women.(Au)