Exposure to physical, sexual and emotional violence and health-related factors among the adult population in the Faroe Islands

Aims: The Faroe Islands is a small homogenous archipelago located in the North Atlantic Ocean with no prior study of violence among adults. In an adult population-based sample, we studied physical, sexual and emotional violence and health and socio-economic determinants.

Methods: A population-based cross-sectional survey conducted between November 2020 and February 2021 was based on a newly initiated questionnaire that included 1068 randomly selected individuals aged 18-75.

Results: A total of 34.8% reported exposure to physical violence, 21.8% to sexual violence and 22.3% to emotional violence. A total of 12.6% of the women and 7.6% of the men reported exposure to all three types of violence. The consequences of childhood violence had a more significant effect on the subjects compared to adult-life violence. Additionally, individuals exposed to violence had significantly lower odds of achieving any educational attainment.

Conclusions: Compared to men and after adjustments, women had 50% lower odds of exposure to physical (odds ratio=0.5, p<0.001) and more than three times the odds of exposure to sexual violence (odds ratio=3.1, p<0.001). The odds of emotional violence were sex independent, both unadjusted and adjusted. Moreover, exposure to violence showed a life-long negative impact.