Skip to main content
Log in

Evaluation of a Health Care Provider Training Program to Identify and Help Partner Violence Victims

  • Published:
Journal of Family Violence Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study tested four hypotheses about the impact of a 3-h domestic violence training program with 752 health care providers on attitudes and values related to screening and helping partner violence victims. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were that training would be related to: 1) increased self-efficacy to identify and help partner violence victims, 2) increased endorsement of the role of health care providers and settings for helping partner violence victims, and 3) increased comfort making appropriate community referrals to help partner violence victims. Hypothesis 4 was that training effects would be moderated by prior training and by prior experience with helping a victim. Following training, health care providers reported increased self-efficacy, increased comfort making appropriate community referrals, and increased valuation of health care providers and the health care system as having an important role in stopping domestic violence. Hypothesis 4 was also supported. Prior training and/or experience with an abuse victim predicted smaller changes in the dependent variables. These gains held at a 6-month follow-up. Implications for training curriculum design are discussed, in addition to institutional policy implications for determining the benefits versus costs of universal training, including staff who demonstrate prior training or experience with battered victims. Study limitations and future research directions, including the need to measure performance and policy compliance will also be outlined.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ambuel, B., Hamberger, L. K., and Lahti, J. (1997). The Family Peace Project: A model for training health care professionals to identify, treat, and prevent partner violence. In Hamberger, L. K., Burge, S., Graham, A., and Costa, A. (eds.), Violence Issues for Health Care Educators and Providers, Haworth, Binghamton, NY, pp. 55-81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, N., and Reif, C. J. (1997). Designing a program to teach and practice domestic violence intervention using a community oriented primary care framework. In Hamberger, L. K., Burge, S., Graham, A., and Costa, A. (eds.), Violence Issues for Health Care Educators and Providers, Haworth, Binghamton, NY, pp. 33-54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychol. Rev. 84: 191-215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. Am. Psychol. 37: 122-147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bergman, B., and Brismar, B. (1991). A 5-year follow-up of 117 battered women. Am. J. Public Health 81: 1486-1488.

    Google Scholar 

  • Box, G. E. P., and Cox, D. R. (1964). An analysis of transformation. J. R. Stat. Soc. 5: 22-25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cantos, A. L., Neidig, P., and O'Leary, K. D. (1994). Injuries of women and men in a treatment program for domestic violence. J. Fam. Violence 9: 113-124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cascardi, M., Langhinrichsen, J., and Vivian, D. (1992). Marital aggression: Impact, injury, and health correlates for husbands and wives. Arch. Intern. Med. 152: 1178-1184.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coben, J. H., Forjuoh, S. N., and Gondolf, E. W. (1999). Injuries and health care use in women with partners in batterer intervention programs. J. Fam. Violence 14: 83-94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coonrod, D. V., Bay, R. C., Rowley, B. D., DelMar, N. B., Gabriele, L., Tessman, T. D., and Chambliss, L. R. (2000). A randomized controlled study of brief interventions to teach residents about domestic violence. Acad. Med. 25: 55-57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cornwell, E. E., Jacobs, D., Walker, M., Jacobs, L., Porter, J., and Fleming, A. (1995). National Medical Association surgical section position paper on violence prevention. JAMA 273: 1788-1789.

    Google Scholar 

  • Covington, D. L., Maxwell, G., Clancy, T. V., Churchill, M. P., and Ahrens, W. L. (1995). Poor hospital documentation of violence against women. J. Trauma Inj. Infect. Crit. Care 38: 412-416.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dearwater, S. R., Coben, J. H., Campbell, J. C., Nah, G., Glass, N., McLoughlin, E., and Bekemeier, B. (1998). Prevalence of intimate partner abuse in women treated at community hospital emergency departments. JAMA 289: 433-438.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feldhaus, K., Koziol-McLain, J., Amsbury, H. L., Norton, I. M., Lowenstein, S. R., and Abbott, J. L. (1997). Accuracy of 3 brief screening questions for detecting partner violence in the emergency department. JAMA 277: 1357-1361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazmararian, J. A., Lazorick, S., Spitz, A. M., Ballard, T. J., Saltzman, L. E., and Marks, J. S. (1996). Prevalence of violence against pregnant women: A review article. JAMA 275: 1915-1920.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gin, N. E., Rucker, L., Frayne, S., Cygan, R., and Hubbell, A. (1991). Prevalence of domestic violence among patients in three ambulatory care internal medicine clinics. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 6: 317-322.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleason, W. J. (1993). Mental disorders in battered women: An empirical study. Violence Vict. 8: 53-68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golding, J. M. (1999). Intimate partner violence as a risk factor for mental disorders: A meta-analysis. J. Fam. Violence 14: 99-132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamberger, L. K., and Ambuel, B. (2000). Community collaboration to develop research programs in domestic violence. J. Aggression Maltreatment Trauma 4: 239-272.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamberger, L. K., Saunders, D. G., and Hovey, M. (1992). Prevalence of domestic violence in community practice and rate of physician inquiry. Fam. Med. 24: 283-287.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helton, A. S., McFarlane, J., and Anderson, E. T. (1987). Battered and pregnant: A prevalence study. Am. J. Public Health 77: 1337-1339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, M., and Elliott, B. A. (1997). Domestic violence among family practice patients in midsized and rural communities. J. Fam. Pract 44: 391-399.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandel, J. B., and Marcotte, D. B. (1983). Teaching family practice residents to identify and treat battered women. J. Fam. Pract. 17: 708-716.

    Google Scholar 

  • McFarlane, J., Parker, B., Soeken, K., and Bullock, L. (1992). Assessing for abuse during pregnancy: Severity and frequency of injuries and associated entry into prenatal care. JAMA 267: 3176-3178.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLeer, S. V., Anwar, R., Herman, S., and Maquiling, K. (1989). Education is not enough: A system failure in protecting battered women. Ann. Emerg. Med. 18: 651-653.

    Google Scholar 

  • New York State Office for Prevention of Domestic Violence. It's Not OK, Running time, 20 minutes, Albany, NY, Joseph Feury Productions.

  • Olson, L., Anctil, C., Fullerton, L., Brillman, J., Arbuckle, J., and Sklar, D. (1996). Increasing emergency physician recognition of domestic violence. Ann. Emerg. Med. 27: 741-745.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riley, D. (1997). Educational methods in teaching about violence. In Hamberger, L. K., Burge, S., Graham, A., and Costa, A. (eds.), Violence Issues for Health Care Educators and Providers, Haworth, Binghamton, NY, pp. 131-152.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, G. L., O'Toole, B. I., Raphael, B., Lawrence, J. M., and Ashby, R. (1996). Prevalence study of domestic violence victims in an emergency department. Ann. Emerg. Med. 27: 747-753.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sassetti, M. (1992). Battered women. In Hendricks-Matthews, M. (ed.), Violence Education: Toward a Solution, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, Kansas City, MO, pp. 31-54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saunders, D. G. (1994). Posttraumatic stress symptom profiles of battered women: A comparison of survivors in two settings. Violence Vict. 9: 125-138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saunders, D. G., and Kindy, P. (1993). Predictors of physicians' responses to woman abuse: The role of gender, background, and brief training. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 8: 606-609.

    Google Scholar 

  • Short, L. M., Cotton, D., and Hodgson, C. S. (1997). Evaluation of the module on domestic violence at the UCLA School of Medicine. Acad. Med. 72: 75-92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stark, E., Flitcraft, A., and Frazier, W. (1979). Medicine and patriarchal violence: The social construction of a private event. Int. J. Health Serv. 9: 461-493.

    Google Scholar 

  • StataCorp (1999). Stata Statistical Software: Release 6.0, Stata Corporation, College Station, TX.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sugg, N. K., and Inui, T. (1992). Primary care physicians' response to domestric violence: Opening Pandora's Box. JAMA 267: 3157-3160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, R. S., Meyer, B. A., Smith-DiJulio, K., Caplow, M. P., Maiuro, R. D., Thompson, D. C., Sugg, N. K., and Rivara, F. P. (1998). A training program to improve domestic violence identification and management in primary care: Preliminary results. Violence Vict. 13: 395-410.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ware, J. H., Mosteller, F., Delgado, F., Donnelly, C., and Ingelfinger, J. A. (1992). P-values. In Bailor, J. C., III, and Mosteller, F. (eds.), Medical Uses of Statistics, 2nd edn., NEJM Books, Boston, pp. 181-200.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warshaw, C. (1989). Limitations of the medical model in the care of battered women. Gender Soc. 3: 506-517.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wisner, C. L., Gilmer, T. P., Saltzman, L. E., and Zink, T. M. (1999). Intimate partner violence against women: Do victims cost health plans more? J. Fam. Pract. 48: 439-443.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hamberger, L.K., Guse, C., Boerger, J. et al. Evaluation of a Health Care Provider Training Program to Identify and Help Partner Violence Victims. Journal of Family Violence 19, 1–11 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOFV.0000011578.37769.c4

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOFV.0000011578.37769.c4

Navigation