Intimate Partner Violence in Older Women

tion, frequency, and severity of intimate partner vio-lence (‘‘partner violence’’) in older women. Design and Methods: We randomly sampled a total of 370 English-speaking women (65 years of age and older) from a health care system to participate in a cross-sectional telephone interview. Using 5 questions from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and 10 questions from the Women’s Experience with Battering (WEB) Scale, we assessed a woman’s exposure to partner violence. We estimated lifetime partner violence prevalence using the BRFSS questions (physical, forced intercourse, forced sexual contact, verbal threats, and controlling behavior), and we estimated past-5-year and past-year prevalence using the BRFSS and theWEB Scale.We estimated violence frequency, duration, and severity using the BRFSS questions. Results: According to the BRFSS, lifetime partner violence prevalence was 26.5%; 18.4 % of women experienced physical or sexual violence and 21.9 % experienced nonphysical violence (threats or controlling behavior). According to the BRFSS and WEB Scale, past-5-year violence prevalence was 3.5%, and past-year violence prevalence was 2.2%. Many abusedwomen reported more than 20 episodes of violence in their lifetime (from 18.1 % for physical violence to 61.2 % for controlling behavior). The median duration ranged from 3 years (forced sexual contact) to 10 years (controlling behavior). The proportion of abused women rating their abuse as severe ranged from 39.1 % (forced sex or sexual contact) to 70.7 % (threats). Implications: The high lifetime partner violence occurrence, frequency, dura-tion, and severity, coupled with results from prior studies indicating long-term adverse health effects of partner violence, suggest a need for increased efforts to address partner violence in older women