Abstract
This study aimed to measure attitudes and perceived preparedness of physicians in Serbia to deal with intimate partner violence against women and to test and culturally validate scales that were used for these measurements. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 435 physicians from 23 primary healthcare centers in Serbia. Physicians’ attitudes toward IPV were better than perceived preparedness (mean score 52.03 out of 100, SD 10.78 vs. 46.92 out of 100, SD 21.71). Three components of attitudes were identified, explaining 50.34 % of variance. Both attitudes and preparedness scales proved to have good reliability (α = 0.66 and α = 0.94). Previous education moderately predicted preparedness, however it was inconsistently associated with attitudes.
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Acknowledgments
Authors are grateful to Dr. Stanislava Otasevic and Women’s Health Promotion Centre from Belgrade who implemented the programme; healthcare professionals for taking a part in the study; and to Dr Elizabeth J. King from Yale University, School of Public Health, United States, who kindly completed English language editing. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of Serbia (Project No 175025).
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Author Note
Bosiljka Djikanovic, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Social Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Sylvie Lo Fo Wong, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Department of Primary and Community Care / Women’s Studies Medical Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Snezana Simic, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Social Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Jelena Marinkovic, Institute of Medical Statistics and Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Chris Van Weel, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Department of Primary and Community Care / Women’s Studies Medical Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Antoine Lagro-Janssen, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Department of Primary and Community Care / Women’s Studies Medical Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Djikanovic, B., Lo Fo Wong, S., Simic, S. et al. Physicians’ Attitudes and Preparedness to Deal with Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Serbia. J Fam Viol 30, 445–452 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9708-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9708-8