Direct costs of domestic violence against women in legal medicine centers in Tehran

This study seeks to determine the direct cost of wife abuse in the 5 Legal Medicine Centers (LMCs) in Tehran.

This was a descriptive cross sectional study. Given the 18% prevalence of violence against women; with a precision of 5%, a sample size of 225 was estimated. A questionnaire was developed to collect data. The costs were calculated by adding marginal and principal costs. Principal costs included all monetary expenditures related to the medical care services, legal-judiciary follow up, commuting and sundry charges.

On average, each woman has spent 132234 Rls for healthcare services. This figure included on average 25156 Rls for visits, 23595 Rls for prescribed drugs, 33483 Rls for radiological studies and 50000 for laboratory tests. Given the total number of 9050 of female victims of the domestic violence attending LMCs in the year 2002, the total medical services was estimated at 2801133,4071 Rls. Total legal services charged by the Police Force in 2002 was 1,46517361910 Rls. In the same period, sundry charges was 320/71/350 Rls. The estimated total costs therefore reached as high as 2/056/941/667 Rls.

The study findings indicate that in Iran high expenses of domestic violence is imposed and this needs an urgent attention. Public health inventions might help to reduce the cost of domestic violence against women.