The effect of television news items on intimate partner violence murders

Background: This study has been carried out in order to explore the effect of the growing appearance of IPV in television news items on deaths by this cause. Methods: Ecological study based on 340 deaths by intimate partner violence (IPV) and 3733 television news items covering this topic on Spanish television channels (2003 and 2007). Logistic regression analysis was carried out. Dependent variable: the difference between the number of IPV deaths in the 7 days following a news item broadcast and the number of IPV deaths in the 7 days before a media item. This outcome variable was conceptualised as a binary variable: increase vs. no increase. Independent variables: days with IPV news items— in general, concerning deaths, measures or other IPV crimes. Adjusted variables: day of the week, month, year and public holidays. Results: A small copycat effect was observed in the IPV murder rate (RR = 1.32, CI95% = 1.07 1.62) for IPV-related news item days compared with days without such news. This effect continued when information about deaths was broadcast (RR = 1.28, CI95% = 1.01 1.62). News items concerning measures (RR = 0.90, CI95% = 0.82 0.98) or other IPV crimes (0.84, CI95% = 0.82 0.98) were related to a lower possibility of an increase in deaths compared with days with death-related news. Conclusion: Given the results observed in the case of IPV-related news, there is an evident need to develop a journalistic style guide in order to determine what type of information is recommended due to the potential positive or negative effects.ISC-III (project entitled ‘Gender Violence, Mass Media and copycat effect’) and the Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumption sponsorship of the Women’s Health Observatory

Prevalence of violence against immigrant women: a systematic review of the literature

Interest in studying the particular case of the victimization of immigrant women has increased. This systematic review intends to document the violence that is experienced by immigrant women within their host country and its prevalence. Research was conducted using five databases: PsycArticles, Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus and ScienceDirect. We selected 24 quantitative studies, according to the following inclusion criteria: published between 2003 and 2013, that focused on an adult study population, and that revealed the prevalence of victimization that is experienced by immigrant women. These studies were mainly conducted in America (67 %) and Europe (33 %), and the participants were mostly Asian and Latin women. The large majority of the studies focused their attention on intimate partner violence, whose prevalence ranges between 17 % and 70.5 %. There is a high variability of the prevalence rates, which could be due to cultural factors and/or to methodological issues. These matters should be addressed by future researchers to allow for a better understanding of the phenomena.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio