Health care use and costs among women experiencing interpersonal violence: A retrospective chart review

Abstract

This study explored health care use and costs among 184 Finnish women identified as having experienced family violence, sexual violence, or other interpersonal violence in emergency care. Their medical records were analysed two years before and after their identification. The health care costs generated by the family violence victims were 33% higher before identification and 83% higher thereafter than those among the general population. Health care visits were found to increase towards the identification date with a strong linear correlation among victims of family (r = .68, p < .001), sexual (r = .50, p < .001) and other violence (r = .68, p < .001). The health care costs of the family violence victims surpassed the population mean approximately 20 months before their identification date. The health care use among victims of family (r = − .68, p < .001) and sexual violence (r = − .61, p < .001) decreased significantly for two years after identification. For other victims, the health care use declined for the first year after identification (r = − .63, p < .001) but started to increase again after that (r = .41, p = .003). With the steady decline, the health care costs of the family violence victims reached the mean level of the general population at the very end of the two-year follow-up. The results suggest that earlier identification of victims of family violence could significantly decrease the adverse health effects resulting from violence and create notable savings in the health care sector.