Risk Factors for Spousal Abuse in Women Referring to Forensic Medicine in Tehran, Iran

Spousal abuse is defined as any kind of violence by a spouse or sexual partner and today is one of the social problems observed in the form of physical violence, emotional psychological violence, and sexual violence. This study aimed to investigate the patterns and risk factors of spousal abuse in patients referred to forensic medicine in Tehran during the years 2020 to 2021.

This study was a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 322 people were included in the study over 2 years. Data collection had two sections: demographic variables and a short form of spousal abuse experience questionnaire. Finally, the data were analyzed by SPSS software version 24.

According to the questionnaire scores, the most common pattern of spousal abuse is verbal violence. Heavy physical violence has the lowest frequency pattern. In terms of ranking, the pattern of emotional violence, light physical violence, and sexual violence are after verbal violence. In the study of factors relevant  to spousal abuse, a significant relationship was found between the age of the victim's spouse, education level of women and their spouses, type of residence, number of children, and history of spousal abuse with the incidence of spousal abuse (P<0.05). There was, however, no difference between the age of women victims of spousal abuse, place of residence, and previous years of marriage with the incidence of spousal abuse (P>0.05).

Although in previous studies, emotional or psychological violence has been the most common, in the present study, verbal violence has been realized as the most common type of spousal abuse; therefore preventive policies and design of required interventions at different levels of society are relevant.