Intimate partner violence in Europe: design and methods of a multinational study.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the design, methods, procedures and characteristics of the population involved in a study designed to compare Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in eight European countries.

METHODS: Women and men aged 18-65, living in Ghent-Belgium (n = 245), Stuttgart-Germany (n = 546), Athens-Greece (n = 548), Budapest-Hungary (n = 604), Porto-Portugal (n = 635), Granada-Spain (n = 138), Östersund-Sweden (n = 592), London-United Kingdom (n = 571), were sampled and administered a common questionnaire. Chi-square goodness of fit and five-age strata population fractions ratios for sex and education were computed to evaluate samples' representativeness.

RESULTS: Differences in the age distributions were found among women from Sweden and Portugal and among men from Belgium, Hungary, Portugal and Sweden. Over-recruitment of more educated respondents was noted in all sites.

CONCLUSION: The use of a common research protocol with the same structured questionnaire is likely to provide accurate estimates of the general population IPV frequency, despite limitations in probabilistic sampling and restrictions in methods of administration.