PREVALENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AMONG PATIENTS ATTENDING A HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of d omestic violence victims among patients using emergency services at Sy dney's Royal North Shore Hospital, in an affluent urban area of New So uth Wales. This study used a self-administered questionnaire (used in a similar study at the Royal Brisbane Hospital) to investigate the his tory of domestic violence among patients attending the emergency depar tment during 64 randomly selected nursing shifts in October-November 1 994. Adult domestic violence was reported by 19.3 per cent of females and 8.5 per cent of males, confirming the results of the Brisbane stud y. Evidence for underreporting was found: 4 per cent of females and 6. 3 per cent of males who did not report being victims revealed experien ces of abuse on mine measures of types of violence, including six take n from the Conflict Tactics Scale. Results supported evidence from oth er studies suggesting that experience of abuse as a child is a risk fa ctor for being in abusive relationships as an adult. In the past, comp arison of results has been limited because of variation in definitions of domestic violence; this has been overcome by intentional replicati on of the Brisbane study. The study was enhanced by inclusion of patie nts from non-English-speaking backgrounds and a cohort of parents of c hildren attending. Similar prevalence estimates were found in these gr oups. Results have implications for the detection and treatment of vic tims of domestic violence across all strata of society and have potent ial to raise awareness and affect attitudes towards this significant c ommunity problem.