Psychopathological characteristics of female victims of intimate partner violence

Abstract

Intimate partner violence has caused considerable social alarm. Better awareness of the characteristics and problems of the female victims of this type of violence is necessary to be able to provide adequate psychological attention. This is the purpose of the present study. We studied a sample of 212 women who had been exposed to a situation of intimate partner violence, were remitted by diverse institutions of the Madrid Autonomous Region, and who were assessed via the same procedure. The results contribute data about socio-demographic characteristics and history of violence, which resemble those obtained in previous research. As regards psychopathological variables, there was a lower incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder and a higher incidence of depression. The presence of some concomitant variables was observed, notably problems of adaptation, low self-esteem, and dysfunctional post-traumatic cognitions.