The rate of recent violence against newly admitted psychiatric
inpatients by partners and family members was assessed. Sixty-nine patients
who had a partner or contact with a family member participated. A high
proportion of respondents reported physical victimization by either their
partner (62.8 percent) or a family member (45.8 percent). Physical abuse
was rarely documented in medical charts, and most respondents did not
consider the violence they experienced to be abuse. Almost half of the
respondents met criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder in response to
their physical victimization. The findings underscore the importance of
assessing recent partner and family violence in the routine evaluation of
psychiatric patients.
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