Personality Traits and their Impacts on the Mental Health of Battered Women

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Background & aim: Domestic violence is an individual and social damage, which is affected by personality traits and can cause a crisis for the mental health of individuals; thus, the present study aimed to investigating personality traits and its impact on mental health of battered women in Tehran, 2013. Methods:In this cross-sectional study, 196 married women who referred to Tehran Legal Medicine Center in 2013 were selected based on simple sampling method, and then were studied based on General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). In this cross-sectional study, the data were analyzed with the Pearson Correlation Test using the SPSS-16. Results: The present study revealed that statistically mental health has a significant and positive correlation with neuroticism personality trait (r=0.318, P<0.001), while it has a significant but negative correlation with extraversion personality trait (r=-0.280, P<0.001), agreeableness (r=-0.201, P=0.002), and conscientiousness (r=-0.265, P=0.001). Conclusion: Although mental disorder on the part of battered women paves the way for violence against them, learning personality traits along with individual and social factors among women can significantly contribute to prevention, screening and necessary treatments by experts and authorities.