Intimate partner violence in Latina and non-Latina women.

BACKGROUND: No single study has delineated the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) over multiple time periods for Latina versus non-Latina women and compared the health of abused Latina women to the health of abused non-Latina women using multiple health indicators. The objective of this study was to describe the prevalence of IPV over multiple time periods and the association between lifetime IPV exposure and current health in Latina and non-Latina women.

METHODS: A total of 3429 women (mean age=47 years) were randomly sampled from a large U.S. healthcare system; 139 (4%) were Latina. During a telephone survey, past-5-year and past-year IPV prevalence was assessed using five questions on physical and psychological abuse from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and ten questions from the Women's Experience with Battering Scale; lifetime IPV prevalence was assessed using the BRFSS questions. Current physical, social, and mental health was assessed using well-validated questionnaires.

RESULTS: Prevalence of IPV for Latina versus non-Latina women was, respectively: 44.6% vs 44% lifetime; 20.1% vs 14.5% for the past 5 years; and 11.5% vs 7.8% for the past year. In models adjusted for age and income, women with a lifetime IPV history had significantly worse health compared to non-abused women across many health indicators; for example, Latina women with a lifetime IPV history had Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) subscale scores that were 5.62 (mental health) to 7.77 (vitality) points lower than those for non-abused Latina women; depression prevalence more than two times higher; and more physical symptoms. Adverse IPV-related health was significantly worse for Latina than non-Latina women for overall mental health functioning (p<0.02), vitality (p<0.01), and emotional functioning (p<0.01) according to SF-36.

CONCLUSIONS: This exploratory study showed that IPV is common in Latina and non-Latina women, and adverse IPV-related mental health was pronounced in Latina women.