Table 1.

Evaluation of attitudes of Portuguese judges and victim support professionals toward domestic violence.

	Judges (N = 37)	Victim support professionals (N = 44)	U	p
	M (SD) Md (Mean Rank)	M (SD) Md (Mean Rank)
Profile of the domestic violence victim
20.Schooling negatively related to domestic violence	1.97 (0.56)	1.63 (0.62)	411.000	0.020
	2 (40.83)	2 (30.78)
7.Women are as violent as men	2.17 (0.37)	2.12 (0.71)	592.500	0.751
	2 (36.75)	2 (35.45)
8.Women provoke their abusers	1.87 (0.56)	1.25 (0.48)	306.000	0.000***
	2 (50.13)	2 (29.45)
12.Women lie about being domestic violence victims	2.03 (0.30)	1.56 (0.68)	347.000	0.000***
	2 (45.48)	1 (28.90)
16.Women suffer more domestic violence than men	3.18 (0.57)	3.61 (0.49)	456.500	0.001***
	3 (30.93)	4 (46.13)
Domestic violence victim’s protection
1.Women can defend themselves without recourse to weapons	2.44 (0.54)	2.56 (0.96)	582.000	0.600
	2 (34.69)	2 (37.08)
9.Female victims of domestic violence do not ask for help because they do not want to	1.74 (0.50)	1.26 (0.44)	402.000	0.000***
	2 (49.51)	1 (31.35)
14.Domestic violence must be resolved by the couple themselves	1.41 (0.55)	1.14 (0.35)	591.000	0.015**
	1 (45.03)	1 (35.57)
17.Domestic violence must always be reported	3.14 (0.63)	3.56 (0.66)	535.500	0.006**
	3 (33.38)	4 (46.43)
21.Coercive measures are effective in protecting victims of domestic violence	2.74 (0.44)	1.81 (0.69)	220.500	0.000***
	3 (51.89)	2 (27.13)

¹Scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree), ^*p < 0.05;

^** p  < 0.01;

^***p < 0.001.