Identification and Intervention by Health Care Providers

These guidelines aim to provide evidence-based guidance to health-care providers on the appropriate responses to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women, including clinical interventions and emotional support. They also seek to raise awareness among health-care providers and policymakers of gender-based violence in order to improve health-sector response to the problem.

This article discusses the critical role of primary care providers in identifying intimate partner violence and facilitating referrals through routine inquiry, ongoing dialogue, and establishing patient trust.

On this webinar, Dr. Michele Decker discussed the link between dating/domestic violence and women's exposure to HIV. Ways to raise awareness, decrease stigma and increase services for HIV+ women were shared for crisis counselors, domestic violence victim advocates and shelter managers.

This guide focuses on the transformative role of the reproductive health care provider in identifying and addressing intimate partner violence (IPV) and reproductive coercion.

This information sheet examines the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy, its prevalence globally, its health consequences, whether pregnancy is a trigger for IPV, interventions, and policy and research implications.

This document provides an introduction to basic prevention concepts by exploring the public health approach, two classification systems, a planning tool used to develop more comprehensive initiatives, and the importance of understanding terminology. It addresses the topics of women's health, mental health and substance abuse, family planning, STIs and HIV, perinatal programs, breastfeeding, child and adolescent health, and injury and violence prevention.

This document expands the scope of routine screening for IPV to include assessment for reproductive and sexual coercion. A trauma-informed, comprehensive approach to relationship violence that includes behaviors that interfere with patients reproductive health can improve the quality of care and reproductive health outcomes including higher contraceptive compliance, fewer unintended pregnancies, preventing coerced and repeat abortions, and reducing sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIV and associated risk behaviors.

This document highlights the need for child health care providers to become actively involved in domestic violence prevention and provides recommendations for regular and universal screening for domestic violence in child health care settings.

This news article discusses a 2008 study by Dr. Bair-Merritt. Findings of the study underscore the need for pediatricians to screen mothers for domestic violence.

This document is intended as a guide for mental health providers on screening and assessment for domestic violence among clients seen in their practice settings. Questions can be easily incorporated into existing intake forms and assessment procedures. See also Responding to Domestic Violence: Sample Forms for Mental Health Providers.

This document presents good practice tips for health care professionals working with patients who have been abused. The guidelines provide screening tips, highlight the negative effect of couples counseling in domestic violence situations, and present safety planning tips.

Describes concerns of state domestic violence coalitions and mental health providers and/or agencies and provides model initiatives and programs that have begun the work of responding to the mental health needs of battered women and their children.

This bulletin argues that dental professionals need to be trained in intervention skills and strategies for domestic violence prevention.

This article discusses the role of dental care professionals in identifying domestic violence and responding to patients who have facial injuries that are a result of domestic violence.

This folio notes that seventy-five percent of domestic violence-related physical injuries are concentrated around the head, neck, and mouth. The folio also provides specialized tools for dental professionals on screening and responding to domestic violence.

This manual is designed for health professionals and addresses domestic violence from the clinical perspective, with a focus on assisting migrant and immigrant survivors of abuse.

This manual recognizes the impact of culture on patient-doctor communication, particularly when discussing domestic violence. The manual provides guidelines for health care providers to effectively screen culturally diverse patients for domestic violence.

This report shows that physicians tend to be inadequately prepared to respond to patients who have experienced domestic violence, and that physicians' response to immigrant women who have been abused tend to be influenced by stereotypes about violence within the cultural groups. The report also discusses issues related to disclosure of violence for immigrant women. Recommendations of the report emphasize the need for health care providers to be more educated and aware of the health care impacts of violence.

The guidelines are designed to assist health care providers from multiple settings and in various professional disciplines in addressing domestic violence victimization, including assessment, documentation, intervention and referral information.

This compilation provides practitioners and clinicians with an inventory of existing assessment tools for determining intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence victimization in clinical/healthcare settings.

This Applied Research paper provides a review of the current literature on screening women for sexual violence in health care facilities, and discusses the reasoning and rationale behind screening women for sexual violence.

This screening guide provides information about the prevalence of abuse among women with disabilities and presents guidelines for health care practitioners for identifying and responding to patents with signs of abuse.

This webinar provides an opportunity to learn how to respond to and advocate for clients experiencing domestic violence. Covering some of the emotional, legal, and financial implications of DV, participants will learn strategies to better help survivors of abuse.

HIV counseling and testing offers numerous opportunities for providers to introduce the issue of domestic violence and to ask persons seeking testing relevant screening questions. This resource provides guidelines for domestic violence screening during the HIV counseling and testing process.

This research brief discusses the importance of documenting domestic violence in healthcare settings to establish factual evidence of the abuse and thereby strengthening legal cases for domestic violence survivors.

This article discusses the importance of coding and documenting domestic violence by health care providers to improve services for victims and to increase knowledge about the impact of domestic violence on patients' health.

This toolkit provides guidance to mental health practitioners and agencies on how to respond to subpoenas and other demands to produce client mental health records in ways that will maximize client safety and autonomy.

This assessment tool for healthcare providers includes screening questions and a body map to document abuse.