Psychopathological symptomatology in victims of intimate partner violence

Intimate partner violence is one of the most significant risk factors for the development of psychopathological symptomatology. The negative impacts of violence, over both short and long time scales, can emerge in different ways. We present a study that analyzes the relationship between psychopathological symptomatology and intimate partner violence in a sample of 122 Portuguese women participants, 61 with a judiciary victim status - the forensic group - and 61 without this status and criminal lawsuit - the normative group. Both samples were assessed with a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Inventário de Violência Conjugal (IVC) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). The forensic group demonstrated a higher number of psychopathological disturbance indicators than the normative group. In the forensic group, the victims that maintained the relationship with the abusive partner and those that already terminated this relationship showed no differences in their psychopathological symptomatology indicators. We also found that psychopathological symptomatology had a stronger association with physical violence than with psychological violence. These results substantiate the need to perform a broader violence risk assessment that takes into account the psychological and physical well-being of the victim, as well as clinical and forensic psychological monitoring.