Relationship Between Injury Pattern and Domestic Violence in a Romanian Population

Physical violence is a cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. An often-underreported subtype of physical violence is domestic violence (DV). The main aim of this study was to identify DV-specific patterns of traumatic injuries in comparison to other types of interpersonal violence (OV) in a Romanian population from a medical-legal standpoint. We performed a retrospective study drawing on 500 medical-legal certificates (medical-legal document attesting the traumatic injuries) of victims of interpersonal violence issued by the National Institute of Legal Medicine Bucharest during the 2017-2020 period. A total of 500 victims comprised the sample, including 188 DV victims and 312 victims of OVs. A majority of the DV victims were women (153 victims; 81%), whereas a majority of the OV victims were men (231 victims, 74%). Overall, DV victims were older compared with OV victims (40.9 +/- 15.4 vs 37.3 +/- 14.8 years, respectively). We found a pattern of frequent upper limb injuries specific to DV, whereas head injuries were specific to OV.