Identification of domestic violence by health care professionals: barriers and facilitators to its recognition and recommendations from research – a review of literature

Health care professionals play an important role in both recognising violence and responding to problems arising problems. However, recognition of the phenomenon by healthcare professionals is inadequate and ranges from 10 to 30% of cases. The purpose of the literature review is to identify the barriers and facilitating factors to the recognition of violence by health care professionals (doctors, nurses, midwives) and to attempt to identify recommendations for improving the situation.

The EBSCO Host database was used to select articles. The review used keywords that referred to domestic violence and healthcare workers (“domestic abuse” AND “healthcare workers”).

A number of barriers to identifying violence by healthcare professionals can be identified in the lite­rature. Among them are barriers related to the organisation of the health care system and those that are related to the work of professionals employed in the system. The second group of barriers relates to the characteristics of victims of violence.

To enhance the effectiveness of screening for violence, it would be desirable to include questions about violence in patient health assessment forms. It is also important to monitor the quality of the screening and make corrections if its effectiveness decreases. Guidelines for dealing with individuals experiencing domestic violence and its perpetrators should also be implemented.