Relationship Between Injury Pattern and Domestic Violence in a Romanian Population

Abstract

Physical violence is a cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. An often-underreported subtype of physical violence is domestic violence (DV). The main aim of this study was to identify DV-specific patterns of traumatic injuries in comparison to other types of interpersonal violence (OV) in a Romanian population from a medical-legal standpoint. We performed a retrospective study drawing on 500 medical-legal certificates (medical-legal document attesting the traumatic injuries) of victims of interpersonal violence issued by the National Institute of Legal Medicine Bucharest during the 2017-2020 period. A total of 500 victims comprised the sample, including 188 DV victims and 312 victims of OVs. A majority of the DV victims were women (153 victims; 81%), whereas a majority of the OV victims were men (231 victims, 74%). Overall, DV victims were older compared with OV victims (40.9 ± 15.4 vs 37.3 ± 14.8 years, respectively). We found a pattern of frequent upper limb injuries specific to DV, whereas head injuries were specific to OV.

Particularities of Offenders Imprisoned for Domestic Violence from Social and Psychiatric Medical–Legal Perspectives

“…Among the aforementioned forms of domestic violence, physical violence is medical-legal objectifiable by examining the victim. In Romania, preexisting medical-legal studies on domestic violence analyzed the victims and revealed the predominance of women victims, with traumatic-injury topography on the head [8] and upper limbs [9].…”