Nursing and medical staff knowledge, attitudes and practices related to intimate partner violence against women in emergency departments: A cross-sectional survey in Southeast Spain

Abstract

Introduction: Healthcare professionals show limited competencies regarding intimate partner violence against women, which influences their approach. Professional category seems to be a predictor of detection practices. This study aims to evaluate the knowledge, preparedness, opinions and detection practices regarding intimate partner violence against women among healthcare professionals in hospital emergency departments (n=178) according to professional category. Methods: A cross-sectional multicentre study using a reduced Spanish version of the PREMIS questionnaire to emergency nurses and physicians of urban hospital emergency services in the city of Granada, in southern Spain. Binary and multivariate logistic regression models were designed to quantify the magnitude of association between variables and case detection. Results: 77% of participants indicated that they had not received previous training in intimate partner violence against women, 26% did not ask questions to identify the abuse and 65% did not detect any cases in the last six months, especially nurses (p=.003). Being an emergency physician (aOR: 2.60; 95% CI: 1.01-5.66), with previous training in gender-based violence (aOR: 4.88; 95% CI: 1.67-14.25) and feeling familiar with the centre’s policies (aOR: 3.22; 95% CI: 1.30-8.00), was associated with the practice of detecting victims in hospital emergency departments. Conclusions: The low level of preparedness of emergency department healthcare professionals to identify and respond to intimate partner violence against women is worrying. The findings emphasise the need to evaluate the training programmes being offered and the dissemination and monitoring of the protocols in force, as well as to implement standardised detection tools and reinforce the development of emergency nurses' skills and responsibilities.