Battered Women, Prevalence

Definitions

Over time, researchers and advocates for battered women have tended to define battering or IPV more comprehensively. Initially, domestic violence tended to be defined as physical aggression or violence by a male partner toward a female partner. But as our understanding of domestic abuse deepened, we learned that women who were physically abused also tended to be emotionally or psychologically abused and often sexually abused as well. Thus, the extent of woman battering or IPV tends to be related in part to how broadly or narrowly it is defined. The more types of abuse that are encompassed in the definition, the higher the estimates will be.

There are other methodological issues that affect measurement of the extent of IPV that include the following:

• Sampling (the size of the group studied and how well it represents the population of people it is supposed to represent in terms of important characteristics such as age, ethnicity, education, and income)
• Data collection methods (e.g., whether people are interviewed in person or by telephone or are asked to complete a paper-and-pencil survey on their own, as well as the exact wording of questions asked; in general, more behaviorally specific questions yield higher and more accurate estimates of abuse)
• Time at risk (the past year versus over the course of a lifetime and whether estimates cover adolescence as well as adulthood or just adulthood)
• Whether threats or attempts at violence are included or only actual acts of violence
• Whether estimates are based on reports from only the female member of the couple or are based on couple agreement (this is important in that women tend to report higher rates of victimization than men report perpetrating)

Prevalence Studies of IPV