Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Mar;22(3):250-8.
doi: 10.1089/jwh.2012.3920. Epub 2013 Feb 21.

Intimate partner violence and cardiovascular risk in women: a population-based cohort study

Lise Eilin Stene  1 , Geir Wenberg Jacobsen, Grete Dyb, Aage Tverdal, Berit Schei
Affiliations

Intimate partner violence and cardiovascular risk in women: a population-based cohort study

Lise Eilin Stene et al. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2013 Mar.

Abstract

Background: A potential link between intimate partner violence (IPV) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been suggested, yet evidence is scarce. We assessed cardiovascular risk and incident prescription of cardiovascular medication by lifetime experiences of physical and/or sexual IPV and psychological IPV alone in women.

Methods: A population-based cohort study of women aged 30-60 years was performed using cross-sectional data and clinical measurements from the Oslo Health Study (2000-2001) linked with prospective prescription records from the Norwegian Prescription Database (January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009). We used age-standardized chi-square analyses to compare clinical characteristics by IPV cross-sectionally, and Cox proportional hazards regression to examine cardiovascular drug prescription prospectively.

Results: Our study included 5593 women without cardiovascular disease or drug use at baseline. Altogether 751 (13.4%) women disclosed IPV experiences: 415 (7.4%) physical and/or sexual IPV and 336 (6.0 %) psychological IPV alone. Cross-sectional analyses showed that women who reported physical and/or sexual IPV and psychological IPV alone were more often smokers compared with women who reported no IPV. Physical and/or sexual violence was associated with abdominal obesity, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and elevated triglycerides. The prospective analysis showed that women who reported physical and/or sexual IPV were more likely to receive antihypertensive medication: incidence rate ratios adjusted for age were 1.27 (95% confidence interval 1.02-1.58) and 1.36 (CI 1.09-1.70) after additional adjustment for education and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. No significant differences were found for cardiovascular drugs overall or lipid modifying drugs.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that clinicians should assess the cardiovascular risk of women with a history of physical and/or sexual IPV, and consider including CVD prevention measures as part of their follow-up.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Flow diagram of the study sample selection.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Saltzman LE. Fanslow JL. McMahon PM. Shelley GA. Intimate partner violence surveillance: uniform definitions and recommended data elements, version 1.0. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 1999.
    1. Neroien AI. Schei B. Partner violence and health: Results from the first national study on violence against women in Norway. Scand J Public Health. 2008;36:161–168. - PubMed
    1. Krug EG. Mercy JA. Dahlberg LL. Zwi AB. The world report on violence and health. Lancet. 2002;360:1083–1088. - PubMed
    1. Garcia-Moreno C. Jansen HA. Ellsberg M. Heise L. Watts CH WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women Study Team. Prevalence of intimate partner violence: findings from the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence. Lancet. 2006;368:1260–1269. - PubMed
    1. Campbell JC. Health consequences of intimate partner violence. Lancet. 2002;359:1331–1336. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources