Domestic Violence Screening

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE

Description of the Public Health Issue

There is an epidemic of family violence in the United States (Arbetter, 1995). Victims include women, children, and the elderly. Approximately two million women are assaulted annually, and husbands or partners kill one-third of the female murder victims every year.

The American Medical Association reported that one in three women will be assaulted by a domestic partner in her lifetime four million in any given year (Flitcraft, 1992). Of the 5,745 women murdered in 1991, as an example, 60 percent were killed by someone they knew, and one-half were murdered by a spouse or someone with whom they had been intimate. The growth in the incidence of domestic violence may be appreciated by comparing the 2,875 women killed by their domestic partners in 1991 with the 1,350 women who were killed under similar circumstances in 1985.

While only a tiny percentage of all assaults on women result in death, the violence often involves severe physical or psychological damage (Constantino & Bricker, 1997). Domestic violence is the leading cause of injuries to women in the 15-to-44 age group. One-half of all rapes of women over 30 are part of the battering syndrome. Between one-quarter and one-half of women presenting complaints in hospital emergency rooms are suffering from injuries or symptoms caused by ongoing domestic abuse (Flitcraft, 1992).

The National Crime Victimization Survey (

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olunteer and comprised the research sample for the study. Because the sample for the study was not selected through the application of scientific procedures, the findings of the study are not generalizable beyond the group of public health nurses that comprised the research sample for the study. Instrumentation The instrument used in the data collection effort for the study, the results of which were reported in this article, was the Public Health Nurse's Response to women Who Are Abused (PHNR). The PHNR is a standardized instrument (Dickson & Tutty, 1996). The PHNR is a 30-item instrument wherein subjects are asked to respond to a described scenario or scenarios (Dickson & Tutty, 1996). The 30-items are divided into three sections that are designed to measure subjects' (1) thoughts, (2) feelings, and (3) actions in response to identifying abuse against women. Responses to each of the 30 items on the PHNR are structured on a four-point Likert Scale (Dickson & Tutty, 1996). Scores on the PHNR can range from zero to 120. Space is provided for unstructured comments by subjects. The internal consistence of the PHNR is considered to be "good," with an alpha of 0.79. The reliability of the PHNR also has been established (Dick

Category: Medical - D