The account of the violence that women undergo is a difficult one. One is dealing with the invisibility of violence affecting users of care services and professionals, which gives rise to communication impasses. The authors attempted to characterize this silence by studying users of primary care in the São Paulo public network as regards the prevalence of violence, the perception of having suffered violence, the definition of violence in general and the designation given by the person who experienced violence. 322 users aged 15 to 49 were interviewed concerning physical, sexual and/or psychological aggression, the aggressor, and the perception of having suffered violence. The interviewees were asked to tell the interviewer about a striking episode, as well as what they would call it and what their definition of violence would be. 69.6% of the interviewees referred to some physical, psychological or sexual aggression; of these, 63.4%% did not consider that they had undergone violence in life; 64.3% told of some striking episode and 46.5% of them gave a name to the experience. The most common definition of violence was physical aggression (78.8%), followed by psychological aggression (39.7%) and sexual aggression (24.2%). One concludes that most women that referred to some aggression did not consider that they had suffered violence in life. They had great difficulty in narrating their episodes and giving them names and, even though most of these episodes had taken place within the domestic sphere, in the definition of violence this reference was omitted.
Communication; violence; invisibility of violence; domestic violence; violence against women
