Paris: Injuries inflicted to women by violent male partners extends well beyond the short term, according to a 10-nation survey of domestic violence released today.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) probe found that physical and sexual abuse routinely resulted in troubled or aborted pregnancies, gynaecological or gastrointestinal disorders and various forms of chronic pain.

The study is the most far-reaching assessment yet into domestic violence in developing countries.

In eight of the 15 urban and rural areas it examined, more than one in seven women subjected to domestic violence said they had been seriously injured at least five times by their partners.

Not only the body is scarred by such violence, said the study, led by Claudia Garcia-Moreno of the WHO and published in the British medical weekly The Lancet.

Consequences also included depression, anxiety, phobias and substance abuse, confirming that the effects of violence can last long after the brutality has ended.

Women who had been physically or sexually abused were three times likelier to have had suicidal thoughts, and four times likelier to have attempted at least once to take their own lives.

"Domestic violence against women is a worldwide problem," said epidemiologist Riyadh Lafta of the Mustansiriya Medical School in Baghdad in a commentary, also published in The Lancet.

Most previous studies have been national in scope, and focused primarily on Europe and North America, he noted.

Source : PTI