Review and special articleIntimate Partner Violence Screening Tools: A Systematic Review
Section snippets
Context
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem associated with adverse health consequences for victims.1, 2, 3 Healthcare settings represent important sites for IPV screening and intervention. In 2004, however, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concluded that there was “insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine screening of women for IPV.”4 This recommendation reflects limited empirical data about the potential harms of screening and about
Study Eligibility Criteria
For the current review, IPV was defined as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or battering (including fear and coercive control) between intimate partners. For inclusion, studies had to (1) determine the psychometric properties of IPV screening questions; (2) test the IPV screening tool in a medical setting such as internal medicine, family practice, obstetrics–gynecology, the emergency department, or pediatrics; (3) be written in English, and (4) be published in a peer-reviewed journal. The
Common IPV Screening Tools
The most studied IPV screening tools were the Hurt, Insult, Threaten, and Scream (HITS),13, 14, 15, 24, 43 the Woman Abuse Screening Tool/Woman Abuse Screening Tool-Short Form (WAST/WAST-SF),15, 16, 17, 25, 26, 44 the Partner Violence Screen (PVS),22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 44 and the AAS.30, 35, 36, 37 These screening instruments are summarized in Table 1, which includes the specific questions and scoring for each screening tool, demographics of the populations on whom the screening tool has been
Comments
Authors of a 1968 WHO report, The Principles and Practice of Screening for Disease, commented that “in theory, screening is an admirable method of combating disease…in practice, there are snags.”48 The current review highlights a number of “snags” that preclude drawing definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of IPV screening tools tested in healthcare settings. First, even the most common screening tools (the HITS, the WAST, the PVS, and the AAS) were evaluated in only a small number of
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