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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Douglas Wiebe, PhD¹, Brendan Carr, MD, MA², Therese Richmond, PhD, CRNP, FAAN³, and Elizabeth Datner, MD². (1) Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, 933 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021, 215-746-0149, dwiebe@cceb.med.upenn.edu, (2) Department of Emergency Medicine; Division of Trauma & Surgical Critical Care, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 34th & Spruce Street, 2nd Floor Dulles Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (3) School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Nursing Education Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Despite a high prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the US, surprisingly few Emergency Departments (ED) adhere to a screening protocol and many clinicians do not screen due to frustration that resources for victims are not available. Given that IPV is characterized by abusive episodes that occur repeatedly, a failure to screen may be a missed opportunity to prevent future abuse.

Screening protocols may be better adhered to, and more resources may be made available, if there were evidence documenting how commonly ED patients go on to sustain abuse during the days that follow discharge. A major obstacle to conducting studies that could provide this information is finding a way to identify new IPV incidents when they occur.

We conducted a pilot study during January-February 2006 at a large urban ED to test a protocol for identifying new incidents of IPV among patients after discharge. The protocol involved (1) screening female and male adult ED patients for IPV, (2) conducting an interview in the ED, and (3) following the patients for one month after discharge to detect new IPV incidents through use of an interactive voice response (IVR) telephone survey.

We present the protocol and focus on challenges of patient retention and concerns over patient safety. We also describe the strategies employed to address these challenges and concerns. We conclude that this protocol could enable large-scale studies of ED patients to establish the incidence of abuse, to identify risk factors for abuse, and to test the efficacy of interventions.

Learning Objectives:

• Articulate challenges to studying intimate partner violence (IPV) in an Emergency Department setting.
• Discuss the benefits of an automated telephone survey as a research method.
• Recognize issues of safety and confidentiality that arise when studying IPV.

Keywords: Domestic Violence, Emergency Department/Room

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered