Higher Risk of Violence Exposure in Men and Women With Physical or Sensory Disabilities

Niclas Olofsson, Kent Lindqvist, Ingela Danielsson

The World Health Organization has declared that violence is a global public health problem. The prevalence of violence exposure among adults with intellectual and unspecific disabilities has been demonstrated in several studies, whereas only a few articles on people with sensory disabilities have been published. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and risk for exposure to physical violence, psychological offence, or threats of violence in people with physical and/or sensory disabilities, compared with people with no such disabilities, controlling for socioeconomic data. Data from a public health survey were analyzed. A nationally representative sample of women and men aged 16 to 84 years had answered a questionnaire. In the present study, the whole sample, comprised of 25,461 women and 21,545 men, was used. Women with auditory disabilities were generally more often violence exposed than non-disabled women, whereas men with physical disabilities were more often violence exposed than non-impaired men. Some age groups among both women and men with visual disabilities had higher prevalence rates than women and men without disabilities. The adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were significantly higher among the auditory impairment group for exposure to physical (OR = 1.4, confidence interval [CI] = [1.1, 1.9]) and psychological (OR = 1.4, CI = [1.1, 1.8]) violence among women. Men with physical disabilities had raised odds ratios for physical violence (OR = 1.7, CI = [1.2, 2.4]) and psychological violence (OR = 1.4, CI = [1.0, 2.0]) compared with the non-disabled group. Both men and women with a physical or sensory disability showed higher odds of being exposed to violence than men and women without a disability. The results indicated that socioeconomic situation, smoking, and hazardous drinking strengthened the association between impairment and violence.