Citation

Ormon K, Sunnqvist C, Bahtsevani C, Levander MT. BMC Psychiatry 2016; 16(1): e79.

Affiliation

Department of Criminology, Faculty of Health and Society, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/s12888-016-0789-6

PMID

27009054

PMCID

PMC4806428

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Experiences of abuse are common among women in general psychiatric care. Even so, there are to our knowledge no previous national or international studies exploring disclosure in a general psychiatric setting of female patient's experiences of abuse to staff or to formal and informal networks. This study aimed to explore women's disclosure of experiencing physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse during their most recent contact with staff at a general psychiatric clinic. The study also aimed to determine whether the women have previously disclosed abuse to anyone.

METHODS: A consecutive sampling of eligible female patients at a general psychiatric clinic in an urban area of southern Sweden answered the NorVold Abuse Questionnaire, NorAQ, a self-administrated questionnaire. NorAQ has previously been used and further developed to compare the prevalence of abuse in women present in gynecological outpatient settings in the five Nordic countries. Seventy-seven women with experiences of abuse participated in the research. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data.

RESULTS: Most respondents did not disclose their experiences of abuse to staff at the general psychiatric clinic. Women with experiences of physical abuse (n = 40), emotional abuse (n = 37) and sexual abuse (n = 37) chose not to disclose their experiences. Respondents disclosed abuse more often to others than to staff.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicated the importance of including routine questions concerning abuse experiences as a natural part of female patients' medical history.

Language: en