الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Today, domestic violence is recognized as a serious societal problem associated with serious injuries, psychological, and medicolegal consequences. Yet, victims in families in which such violence occurs have remained largely invisible because it occurs primarily within the private sphere of the family.
The aim of the present research was to determine the incidence of different types of trauma among family members subjected to domestic violence, determine assailant characteristics obtained from patients and to perform psychological assessment of most of the cases to determine the impact of trauma on them.
The study was conducted on all patients subjected to domestic violence admitted to Emergency Department in Alexandria Main University Hospital throughout six months (from January 2009 to June 2009).
Data were collected from 110 patients including 70 victim below 18 years of age and 40 victims above 18 years and a control (52 individual) for psychological assessment.
All patients were subjected to the following:
A- Detailed history.
B- Examination and management.
C- Assailant characteristics obtained from patients.
D- Psychological evaluation:
1. Child Behavior Check List (CBCL).
2. Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS).
The result of this study showed that:
• There was a highly significant difference between victims exposed to violence above 18 years of age regarding all demographic characteristics, while there was only significant difference regarding education in victims below 18 years of age.
• Analysis of the assailant characteristics showed that there was a highly significant difference between assailants of victims aged above 18 years as regard education, occupation, and relativity. On other hand, there was a highly significant difference of assailants of victim below 18 years of age regarding all characteristics except relativity.
• There was a highly significant difference between victims exposed to violence above 18 years of age regarding all circumstances of injury, while there was a significant difference regarding scene of injury, transportation, and accompanying person in victims below 18 years of age.
• Most of female victims above 18 years had been married, with university level of education, unemployed, did not had any bad habit, and exposed to recurrent assault. While abused males had been widower, with university level of education, unemployed and exposed to previous assault.
• Most of female victims below 18 years were singles, students at secondary school; had no bad habit or previous diseases, and some of them had previous assault injuries. Males had been singles, students with primary education level, and had previous assaults injuries.
• Most of males above 18 years were exposed to violence from assailants that had university level of education, manual workers, sons, and most of them had one bad habit at least. Female victims exposed to violence from assailants with university education level, skilled workers, and husbands or relatives and had bad habits.
• Abused males below 18 years abused by assailants that were illiterate, had semiskilled work, most of them abused by fathers and mothers, and all the assailants had a bad habits, while female victims were abused by assailant who were illiterate, had a manual work , brother relatives, and had bad habits as smoking, drinking alcohol, or drugs of abuse.
• Most of victims above 18 years were abused at home, transported to hospital by taxi, accompanied by relative, and presented in less than one day since injury; same was noticed for victims below 18 years. Victims usually had multiple injuries, extremities were commonly affected, blunt instrument used mainly, and contusions were the most common type of wound. A large percentage of victims were arrived to the ER in fully conscious state and received both medical and surgical treatment, the same for female victims except that the most type of injuries was avulsion wounds.
• The same was noticed for victims below 18 except for type of lesions which was dislocations for males and contusions, fractures and bites for females; most of victims were arrived to the ER in semiconscious state.
• Psychological assessment of male and female victims (6-18years) showed that patients had the highest values for specific phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, incontinence, evidence of delusions, and evidence of hallucinations, on the other side, patients had the low values for mania. However, on the total behavioral problems scale results showed clinically significant behavioral problems in patients groups. This difference was primarily due to that the patient group’s had significantly higher mean score on the withdrawal-depression, anxiety/depression, attention problems and aggressive behavior sub-scales. Analysis of variance indicated also a significant difference on the externalizing disorders.
• Psychological assessment of female and male victims above 18 years shows that patient groups were higher on somatic concern, self-neglect, unusual thought content, tension, hostility, suspiciousness, and uncooperativeness. Also anxiety/depression behavior in patients was significantly higher than the control subjects.