Health care providers often fail to properly identify and treat battered women. Under 10% of women who enter health care settings with physical symptoms related to abuse are identified by physicians. Victims often have a confusing pattern of symptoms. Common complaints include headache, insomnia, choking sensations, hyperventilation, gastrointestinal pain, chest pain, and pelvic and back pain. Battered women are commonly misdiagnosed, over-medicated, and blamed for their problems. They are written off as difficult patients.
The stress of domestic violence often results in emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms which are misinterpreted as psychiatric in origin, rather than as signs of abuse. Battered women display a variety of emotions. They may appear to be hostile, passive, extremely anxious, depressed or hysterical. They may be embarrassed, afraid, angry, sad, shocked, or feel totally out of control, or suicidal. Twenty-five percent of women seeking psychiatric emergency care are battered women. Mental health professionals estimate as many as 75% of female psychiatric patients have a history of abuse. Their symptoms often worsen when they are admitted to psychiatric facilities. Their experiences and expectations as victims are transformed into psychiatric labels such as borderline personality, multiple personality, or panic disorder.
The failure to diagnose abuse may result in inappropriate treatment, including the prescription of antidepressants or sedatives which may increase the risk of suicide or place the women at greater risk of injury from increasing violence.
Good protocol is to ask the patient directly whether she has been injured by an assault. It takes time, training, courage and sensitivity to recognize, inquire, document, and properly attend to your patient who is a victim of abuse.
The stress of domestic violence often results in emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms which are misinterpreted as psychiatric in origin, rather than as signs of abuse. Battered women display a variety of emotions. They may appear to be hostile, passive, extremely anxious, depressed or hysterical. They may be embarrassed, afraid, angry, sad, shocked, or feel totally out of control, or suicidal. Twenty-five percent of women seeking psychiatric emergency care are battered women. Mental health professionals estimate as many as 75% of female psychiatric patients have a history of abuse. Their symptoms often worsen when they are admitted to psychiatric facilities. Their experiences and expectations as victims are transformed into psychiatric labels such as borderline personality, multiple personality, or panic disorder.
The failure to diagnose abuse may result in inappropriate treatment, including the prescription of antidepressants or sedatives which may increase the risk of suicide or place the women at greater risk of injury from increasing violence.
