Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Publication Title

Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal

Volume

20

Issue

11

Pages

717-725

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the frequency of spousal violence among Saudi women and document the related health effects and injuries, as well as their attitudes to gender and violence. Structured interviews were conducted with 200 ever-married women recruited from primary-care centres in Jeddah. Nearly half of the surveyed women (44.5%) reported ever experiencing physical violence from their spouse. Although 37 women (18.5%) had received violence-related injuries, only 6.5% had reported these injuries to a health-care provider. Victims of spousal violence had poor perceptions of their overall health, and reported pain or discomfort, antidepressant use and suicidal thoughts. Women mostly disagreed with the presented justifications for wife beating. However, the association between gender attitudes and spousal violence was not significant. The results of this study support calls for integration of education about partner violence into health care curricula to enhance the access and quality of services.

Comments

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization, products, or services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article’s original URL: http://applications.emro.who.int/emhj/v20/11/EMHJ_2014_20_11_717_725.pdf?ua=1

Original Publication Citation

Eldoseri, H. M., Tufts, K. A., Zhang, Q., & Fish, J. N. (2014). Adverse health effects of spousal violence among women attending Saudi Arabian primary health-care clinics. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 20(11), 717-725.

ORCID

0000-0002-6943-0426 (Fish)

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