Interpersonal Violence, C-Reactive Protein, and Heart Health: A Secondary Analysis of the SWAN Dataset.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Each year, interpersonal violence (IV) affects millions of women, causing devastating effects on them physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and socially. Although mental health consequences have long been noted in the literature, the long-term physical health outcomes of women who have experienced IV have more recently become an area of interest. Many health conditions previously believed to be unrelated to IV are reported in disproportionate numbers in survivors. One of the most concerning is the increase in cardiovascular disease in women who have experienced IV, as cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women worldwide. Of the mechanisms suggested to explain the increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease in IV survivors, C-reactive protein (CRP) is of particular interest because it has been found to be highly predictive of subclinical heart disease. We describe some of the long-term health consequences of IV and their proposed mechanisms of action. We then use secondary data analysis of the SWAN baseline dataset to examine the relationship between CRP and reported IV in the past 12 months. Specifically, we aimed to examine the relationships between CRP, depression, obesity, and smoking for women who indicated IV in the past year. We also aimed to describe the influence of social support and social negativity on CRP, and to explore the impact of perception of the severity of the abuse on CRP for these women. Controlling for age and income, our analyses revealed neither IV nor depression were related to elevated CRP, but smoking and BMI were. We also found that social support and social negativity did not significantly impact CRP levels. Clinical and research implications are discussed.