[Lifetime prevalence and help seeking behavior in physical marital violence].
OBJECTIVE
To estimate the lifetime prevalence of physical marital violence among women from a low-income urban community and to investigate help-seeking behavior among victims.


METHODS
This is the Brazilian pilot cross-sectional study for an international multicenter study conducted in 1999, and is based on a probabilistic cluster sample from the municipality of Embu, São Paulo State. We considered as eligible women aged 15 to 49 years, living with children under age 18 years, who had lived with a husband or partner in lifetime. Information was collected using standardized questionnaires (n=86), administered by trained interviewers. We investigated three types of physical violence: severe (kicking, hitting with fist, beating, and/or use/threat to use weapon), non-severe (slapping in the absence of severe violence), and any type (severe and/or non-severe and/or other physical aggressions spontaneously referred), as well as the type of help sought by the victim (from people or institutions). We calculated frequency and 95% confidence intervals for each type of violence.


RESULTS
Subjects reported slapping (32.6%), hitting with fist (17.5%), beating (15,2%), use/threat to use weapon (13.9%), and kicking (10.6%). Prevalence of marital violence was high: 22.1% (13.3-30.9) for severe violence, 10.5% (4.0-17.0) for non-severe violence, and 33.7% (32.7-34.7) for any type of violence. Victims of severe violence were more likely to seek help from the police (36.8%) or from traditional healers (21.1%) than from health care facilities (5.3%), despite the availability of these services in the area.


CONCLUSIONS
Physical marital violence is frequent and severe among the population studied, and help was sought preferentially from the police or traditional healers rather than from health care services.
Departamento de Psiquiatria, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brasil.
Alessandra
A
Bruschi
Cristiane Silvestre
CS
de Paula
Isabel Altenfelder Santos
IA
Bordin
D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D016495:Police / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011203:Poverty; D015995:Prevalence; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014505:Urban Population