Violence

The authors sought to identify correlates of violent response among women exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) in Lima, Peru. A structured question-naire was used to collect information on exposure to IPV and women's physical violent reaction towards their abuser. Women who were sexually abused by their partners, as compared with women who experienced emotional abuse only, were more than twice as likely to respond in a violent manner to the abuse (OR = 2.32, 95 % CI = 1.14-4.74). Similarly, women who reported being physically abused, were 4 times as likely than those who experienced emotional abuse only to retal-iate in a physically violent manner (OR = 4.04, 95 % CI = 2.68-6.11). Women's educational status, history of witnessing parental violence as a child, and type of IPV are significantly associated with women's violent response. Community sup-port networks and culturally appropriate intervention programs designed to pre-vent and mitigate the impact of IPV are needed