Epidemiological characteristics of violence against women in the Federal District, Brazil, 2009-2012

Objective: to describe the epidemiological characteristics of cases of violence against women reported in the Federal District, Brazil, 2009-2012. Methods: this was a descriptive study of cases of violence against women aged 18-59 registered on the National Notifiable Diseases System (Sinan). Results: 1,924 cases of violence against women were registered, the perpetrators of which were identified as unknown (25.7%) or spouses (19.0%) of the victims; violence mainly occurred against women of brown skin color (25.0%) and in the domestic environment (38.5%); regarding violence type, physical violence (46.8%) by force (48.0%) stood out, whereby the genitals (15.7%) and the head (12.9%) were the most affected regions. Conclusion: physical violence in domestic environments by unknown aggressors was the main type of violence among the reported cases; shortcomings were identified in recording reported cases, showing the need to improve system quality and train health workers involved.