Abstract
The authors surveyed 137 male admissions to the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Veterans Administration Medical Center to estimate the incidence of physical abuse toward wives/partners. Among those 101 who had lived with a woman, physical abuse was reported in 54 cases. However, the violence was judged “serious” by half or more of a panel of judges in only 23 of those cases. Moreover, serious violence within the previous year was reported by only 6 of these men. Since violence rated as serious by half or more of the judges and occurring within the past year was reported in only 4% of the sample, it appears that the need for special treatment programs for batterers is probably limited to a small minority of male psychiatric hospital patients.
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