Perfil clínico epidemiológico de saúde e violência das mulheres atendidas no “Ambulatório Para Elas”

Abstract

Introduction: Violence causes serious impacts to women's health. In 2016, the Ambulatory “Para Elas” was created with the intent of providing comprehensive care, strengthening of autonomy and bonding, dialogue and horizontality in the relationships between all the subjects involved, women, their families and professionals. Objectives: To the violence that affects women attending this clinic and map their health profile. Methods: A cross-sectional, quantitative study, that utilizes data from the records of the multi-professional consultations carried out at said Ambulatory, between October 2016 and November 2019. The data was extracted from mentioned records through a questionnaire built for this purpose, utilizing Excel spreadsheets in google forms and later transported to SPSS. Descriptive statistical analyzes, bivariate analyzes, with frequency distribution of the studied variables and calculation of the odds ratio and correspondence analysis were performed. A Geospatial map was created using the place of residence of the women assisted as starting points. Results: 583 medical charts of girls and women were analyzed. The results show that they reside in all regions of Belo Horizonte and that the majority of these women are in the age group of 40 to 59 years old, are from black ethnicity, have Catholic or Evangelical beliefs, are married, did not study or has incomplete high school and work with general services. Most were attended 2 or 3 times in individual consultations and by 2 or 3 professional categories. The majority of these women report being victims of some type of violence (81.3%), mainly of a psychological/moral (65.18%). The main reported aggressor was the partner or ex-intimate partner. The most prevalent problem groups were "Mental health and behavior" (90.6%), "Unspecified" (56.1%) and "Genitourinary" (46%). Suffering of violence from an intimate partner increased the chance of having problems in 3 or more systems (OR = 1.36), 4 or more problems (OR = 2.18), undifferentiated (OR = 2.07) and chronic problems (OR = 1.6). Suffering other forms of interpersonal, institutional, structural and self-violence also proved to be associated with a greater chance of having problems in 3 or more systems, a greater number of complaints, undifferentiated and chronic problems. Discussion: The high prevalence of problems compatible with depression and/or anxiety, sleep disorders and chronic pain is in accordance with data found in literature reporting the consequences of violence against women's health. Undifferentiated and chronical problems have also previously been associated with violence. The high amount of problems reported in individual care is also associated with violence and is in line with the stigma of “poliqueixosas”, excessive complainers, and “hyper users” that are often utilized to refer to these women at the health centres and with self-perceived illness. It was not possible to assess the severity of suffered violence or of the health problems presented in this work.