Reference Materials Healthcare Provider Intervention Health care providers often fail to properly identify and treat battered women.
Victims often have a confusing pattern of symptoms.
Common complaints include headache, insomnia, choking sensations, hyperventilation, gastrointestinal pain, chest pain, and pelvic and back pain. Battered women are commonly misdiagnosed, over-medicated, and blamed for their problems. They are written off as difficult patients. The stress of domestic violence often results in emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms which are misinterpreted as psychiatric in origin, rather than as signs of abuse. Battered women display a variety of emotions.