Vigilancia de maltrato a la mujer: diseño y aplicación de un procedimiento

The Health Ministry needed to establish a mechanism of observation (observatory of violence against women) to design and apply a procedure to evidence the mistreatment against woman, perpetrated by her spouse, when they live together. This procedure could be used for epidemiological surveillance purposes. It should be simple, easy monitoring, economical, with possibility that could be institutionalized, flexible and not demanding a complex training for its application. A preliminary format was designed and tested, and a test was adapted with the minimal variables to reach the objective. In this way a research called “Study of mistreatment against women by their couple or companion in relations of convivence”, was developed in Cali in 1997. One of the purposes, was to institutionalize a method to evidence the mistreatment, not only sexual harassment and physical punishment, but psychological and economical mistreatment, and the threat of abandon. In this way it is possible to give some orientation for interventions. In this descriptive study 1500 women of low economical class that are consultants of health governmental institutions and actually live together with their couples were interviewed. Among the most relevant results, it was showed, that in the last month of this research violence against women was 47%, and mostly they don't perceive their selves as mistreated though their couples shout at them, threaten them, force them to have sexual relations or hit them. This is one of the reasons for not denouncing this fact to the justice. Another one was the high statistical significance between perceived morbility and the received mistreatment. In other words, this suggested some morbilities that can indicate suggest mistreatment. RESUMEN En el maltrato a la mujer, víctimas y victimarios se transmiten mutuamente formatos de socialización que repercuten en todos los ámbitos de su vida. Las instituciones de salud pueden encontrar el maltrato conyugal «escondido» producido en las mujeres y pueden contribuir, tanto en las intervenciones institucionales de la problemática, como en la orientación y fortalecimiento de las consultantes que enfrentan maltrato. Este procedimiento se usa con el propósito de vigilancia epidemiológica, para que el personal de salud pueda evidenciar el maltrato conyugal a la mujer cuando ella consulta por cualquier causa. Para probarlo se entrevistaron 1,500 mujeres de nivel socioeconómico bajo y muy bajo que consultaron a instituciones de salud del Estado. Entre los hallazgos más relevantes se evidenció que en el último mes estudiado, la mitad de las mujeres fueron tratadas violentamente por sus compañeros; sin embargo, la mayoría de ellas no se percibian como maltratadas. Otro hallazgo importante fueron morbilidades que pueden sugerir maltrato