The mental health damage of the intimate partner violence: different impact on the abused women psychopathology

Abstract

In general, the studies carried out on victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) have focused on research the impact of that violence on the abused women’s health, in particular, on their mental health, concluding that abused women are much more likely than nonvictims to have poor health. Therefore, the psychological damage has been used as a severity measure of the violence suffered. The main purpose of this work was determined if women experienced different degrees of mental health impairment according to the type of violence suffered.  The cross-sectional study followed 108 victims of IPV distributed into three groups: women without symptoms (n=30), women suffering depression (n=50) and women suffering depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (n=28). The statistical analysis carried out determined the development of depression, depression/PTSD or not suffering any evidence of these symptoms are not associated with the type of violence (physical, psychological and/or sexual) providing non-significant statistical data. These results showcase abused women are not a homogeneous group, pointing out a deterioration of abused women's mental health should not be used as a variable which determine the severity of the violence suffered.