How does domestic violence affect women's mental health?

In this paper we compare the mental health of women who reported domestic v iolence and women who reported no abuse in their lifetime. A longitudinal s tudy was conducted with women, 16 to 74 years (n = 358), who attended the e mergency department of a major public hospital in Australia. Our aim was to investigate the nature of symptoms and pattern of mental illness associate d with domestic violence. The results of the baseline data reported in this paper showed that women who experienced abuse as adults suffered more ill- effects to their mental health than women who did not experience such abuse ; also that women who experienced both adult and child abuse suffered more ill-effects than women who experienced abuse either as an adult or child.