Women's experiences of victimizing sexualization, Part II: Community and longer term personal impacts

A critical pathway for intimate partner violence across the continuum of care

OBJECTIVE

The authors developed an interdisciplinary critical pathway for intimate partner violence (IPV) assessment and intervention for use across health care settings. Intimate partner violence may be emotional, physical, and/or sexual and involves coercion and control by one partner over the other.

DESIGN

A pathway developed with input from focus groups of battered women was subjected to a modified Delphi technique to improve the pathway's scientific accuracy and feasibility.

SETTING

The study was conducted in one urban, one suburban, and one rural hospital with IPV advocacy programs in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS

Four researchers and 13 clinicians participated in the validation, with at least one physician, one nurse, and one social worker or IPV counselor from each hospital.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Each element of the pathway was analyzed for the degree of consensus on scientific accuracy and feasibility.

RESULTS

Consensus on the scientific accuracy and feasibility of the pathway was achieved after three rounds of the Delphi process.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first known critical pathway for IPV. It addresses physical and mental health and safety and has content validity affirmed by an interdisciplinary panel of experts. Further process and outcome evaluation is warranted and invited.

Women's experiences of abuse: a review of qualitative research

This article reviews qualitative research published within the past 15 years based on women's first person accounts of their abuse experiences. Battered women's accounts of their experiences in abusive relationships aid in understanding why they stay, how they cope, and how others can help. Women's views of the emotional consequences of battering, the process of leaving, and the impact of social systems and community resources were consistent. Other themes in the literature were abuse in pregnancy, women who fight back, substance use, sex after beatings, family origins, and women who are elderly, minority, or from other cultures. Future research is needed on minority and affluent women, as well as the role of batterer's patriarchal attitudes and religious beliefs. Practice suggestions include expanding screening and parent education to pediatricians' offices and schools.