 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- According to a new study, women abused by their husbands and boyfriends experience more doctor-diagnosed health problems, in conditions you would not typically associate with partner violence.
Compared to women not abused by their partners, victims had a six-fold increase in clinically identified substance abuse, more than a three-fold increase in receiving a depression diagnosis, and a more than three-fold increase in sexually transmitted diseases.
Text Continues Below
Roughly half of the diagnoses we examined were more common in abused women than in other women, Amy Bonomi, lead author of the study and associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University was quoted as saying. Increased health issues also included abdominal pain, chest pain, headaches, acid reflux, urinary track infections and menstrual disorders.
Abuse is associated with much more than cuts and bruises, Bonomi was quoted as saying. Women were surveyed by telephone on physical, sexual or psychological abuse. More than 3,000 women were randomly selected to participate in the study, 242 of these women were abused. All the women gave researchers consent to their medical records.
Although previous studies have connected partner abuse with increased health issues, this study is the first to use medical records for data, rather than patient-reported health.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, October 12, 2009
If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Melissa Medalie at mmedalie@ivanhoe.com
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
|
.gif)
