[HiTech RedNeck]

"37% of women treated for trauma in Emergency rooms have been abused"?

For 37% that is the REASON for the ER visit? Or for 37% there has been some violent incident in their past regardless of how minor.

[LadyDoc]

You asked about the 37 percent of women in emergency rooms.

The number of abuse cases is not that high. But if you take a history if they have ever been abused, 37 percent or about one third will say yes.

But emergency rooms don't see a cross section of the public.

Car accidents are more common with drinkers and druggies and those who ride in cars with drunks and druggies. (like women who have abusive drunk/druggie boyfriends/husbands).

Many abused women are depressed, take drugs/alcohol or (more commonly) legal tranquillizers, and have accidents because they are klutzy when they take these drugs/medicines. so you see broken ankles, kitchen cuts, fall from porches etc. at a much higher rate than in the routine population (some are of course pushed off the porch etc by boyfriend/husbane and lie about it).

And abused ladies are often depressed/poor me/victims who just are so disorganized/lazy/depressed that they just can't manage to get to the doctor, so they come to the emergency room for colds etc that you or I would treat ourselves or wait to see the doctor the next day.

So the numbers tend to be higher in emergency rooms than in offices. However, if you include all abuse, the statistics for all women is probably 10 percent who have been seriously abused or serially abused. But I don't have statistics on this; like most personal things, it's hard to estimate correctly, because it's hard to draw the line on exactly what is abuse....