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Intimate Partner Violence Case Study

Decent Essays

Significance of the Problem
In the United States, approximately 1.5 million women report some form of intimate partner violence (IPV) each year and of those an estimated 324,000 are pregnant (Deshpande & Lewis-O'Connor, 2013). According to Deshpande and Lewis-O’Connor (2013), IPV is defined as abuse that may be actual or threatened by an intimate partner that can be physical, sexual, psychological, or emotional in nature. It is important for health care providers to realize IPV does not only include physical or sexual abuse but also includes name calling, financial control, constant criticism, and isolating women away from their families and friends (Deshpande & Lewis-O'Connor, 2013; Smith, 2008). There are 3 phases of abuse tension building …show more content…

Although IPV occurs in all racial and socioeconomic groups there are some risk factors that increase the risk of intimate partner violence such as being of the female gender, unmarried, low socioeconomic class, young age, uninsured, history of and/or experiencing abuse in childhood, and unintended pregnancy (Bunn, Higa, Parker, & Kaneshiro, 2009; Gottlieb, 2012). Many women believe that during pregnancy the abuse will go away, but unfortunately often it does not (Smith, 2008). Abuse during pregnancy is dangerous to not only the health of the woman but also to that of the fetus. According to Smith (2008), women who are subjected to intimate partner violence during pregnancy are more likely to have pregnancy complications such as preterm labor, miscarriage, infants with low birth weight, sexually transmitted infections, fetal death, late entry into care, and use drugs and alcohol (Smith, 2008). Also there is an increase risk of domestic homicide if abuse is to occur …show more content…

Many women do not report intimate partner violence due to many reasons such as not wanting to be defined as a victim, limited resources, and blaming themselves for the abuse (Smith, 2008). The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant women should be screen for intimate partner violence at the initial prenatal visit, at least once each trimester and at their postpartum check up (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2016). In spite of these recommendations, women continue to no be screened by their health care providers (Bunn et al., 2009). Pregnancy is an excellent time to screen for IPV due to many recurrent appointments (Smith, 2008). Majority of women in the United States receive prenatal care during pregnancy, which increases the number of opportunities for women to disclose that they are experience IPV (Smith, 2008). There are various screening tools used to screen for IPV. As stated in Dunn and McCartney (2014), whether screening for IPV using a computer questionnaire, self answer questionnaire, or a provider interview all are equably effective (change wording. This includes the Abuse Assessment Screen, which is the most widely used screening tool and was created by the Family Violence Prevention

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