Women who experience child abuse are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence in Peru.

Objective: To determine the association between child abuse and intimate partner violence victimization among married or cohabiting Peruvian women aged 18 years old or older.

Methods: Cross-sectional study analyzing secondary data from the National Survey on Social Relationships 2015. To find the association between child abuse and intimate partner violence victimization, a multinomial logistic regression adjusted for possible confounding variables was performed.

Results: Data from 1,084 married and cohabiting women were included. The prevalence of child abuse was 49.6% (95%CI 45.8-53.3) and the prevalence of intimate partner violence victimization was 64.2% (95%CI 60.5-67.8). An association was found between child abuse and intimate partner violence victimization (relative risk ratios 5.72, 95%CI 3.71-8.83).

Conclusions: Married or cohabiting women in Peru who experienced childhood maltreatment are more likely to experience intimate partner violence in adulthood .