Battered women. A surgical problem.

In a retrospective study on 456 women hospitalized at the Departments of Surgery and Oto-rhinolaryngology of Huddinge Hospital for emergency injuries during the years 1978 and 1979, the injuries were found to have been caused by battering in 29%. The majority of the women had been physically abused by their husbands, fiancés or cohabitees. As women seldom seek social or psychiatric assistance for this problem spontaneously, it is an important task of the responsible accident surgeon both to detect battering as the cause of the injuries and to act as mediator in contacting a women's refuge or other social assistance agency.