Investigating the relationship between domestic violence, childhood trauma, alexithymia, somatization

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between experience of domestic violence and childhood trauma, alexithymia and somatization levels among the married women. Methods: A total of 383 women with an average age of 37,94±9,69 and aged 18 and older, were included. Sociodemographic Information Form, The Domestic Violence Scale (DVS), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), Somatosensory Amplification Scale (SSAS) were respectively given to all participants. All data obtained from this study were analyzed by using SPSS for Windows 22.0. Results: In this study, a positive and statistically significant corelation was found between the total score of DVS and the total scores of CTQ, TAS-20, SSAS. Besides, it was determined that total score of CTQ predicted the total score of DVS and the total score of DVS predicted the total score of TAS-20 and SSAS. Significant relationships were found between DVS and marriage variables such as the duration of marriage, the type of marriage, marriage age, the number of marriage, the spouse's number of marriage and the parenthood. Conclusion: Our study indicated that childhood traumatic experiences may be a risk factor for adult women to be exposed to violence. Similarly, alexithymia and somatization tendency were found to be higher in women with high levels of traumatic experiences and domestic violence. Our findings can be a help for generating intervention strategies for experts who work with women exposed to violence. Key Words: violence, domestic violence, childhood trauma, alexithymia, somatization.