Search

Descriptive and clinical accounts of wife abuse consistently report a high incidence of depression and anxiety among samples of battered women. However, these studies all suffer from methodological shortcomings such as nonrepresentative samples, small sample size, and lack of comparison groups. This study corrects many of the methodological shortcomings of previous studies and analyzes reports of psychological distress among victims of violence and abuse by examining data from the Second National Family Violence Survey. A national probability sample of 6,002 households comprised this survey. The examination of the effects of violence is based on an analysis of the information provided by 3,002 female respondents who lived with their husband or male partner, or who had been separated from their husband or male partner less than 12 months at the time of the interview. Women who reported experiencing violence and abuse also reported higher levels of moderate and severe psychological distress. Multivariate analysis indicated that violence made an independent and nonspurious contribution to the psychological distress experienced by women.

Serum concentrations of the thyroid hormone binding proteins, thyroxine binding globulin, prealbumin, and albumin were determined in 30 thyrotoxic patients before and after 131I treatment. Each patient was placed into one of three groups according to response to treatment. The serum concentration of all three proteins rose significantly in 10 patients who became euthyroid, and a greater increase was seen in 10 patients who developed hypothyroidism. There was no significant change in thyroid hormone binding protein concentrations in 10 subjects who remained hyperthyroid. Changes in the concentration of thyroid hormone binding proteins should be borne in mind when total thyroid hormone concentrations are used to monitor the progress of patients receiving treatment for hyperthyroidism.