„Psychosocial factors associated to violence against women”, Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine, 2015, 23 (3): 221-226.
Abstract: Domestic violence has an important dimension in the contemporary world, as it has become not only an epidemiologically meaningful phenomenon, but also a matter of concern for the society. Our study explores several predictive psychosocial factors, associated to domestic violence in Romanian women attending a Legal Medicine service and seeking for a clinical legal medicine examination. A number of n = 46 female participants were finally recruited in the study (mean age = 43.77, min. = 24, max. = 81, SD = 12.05). They were administered a semi-structured interview, consisting of 12 questions exploring the role of the social and demographic factors in the occurrence of violence, the types of violence, and the self-awareness regarding the implications of violence and subsequent life decisions. Parametric (Pearson correlations, linear regression) and non-parametric tests (Spearman correlations, chi-square tests) were used to explore the relationship between scores derived from the interview and domestic violence. Results show that low education, alcohol abuse of the aggressor and age of the victim higher than the age of the aggressor (in informal relationships) were correlated significantly to a higher frequency of aggressions (p = .036 and p = .0003, respectively), whereas early report on the aggressions correlated significantly to high education of the victim (p = .03). Intentions on reaction to aggression were numerous and distributed widely, however 6 months after the events only 6.52% of participants took any kind of measures against their aggressor. This study has implications in better tailoring education and psychological interventions in support of women victims of domestic violence.
