 |
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
|
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Maureen gavin, z, z, z, AL 12345, 123456789, z@z.com
Purpose: The negative impact of domestic violence (DV) on health maintenance has prompted professional associations to recommend health care providers practice routine screening for DV. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) implemented this type of policy at 8 PDPH public health care centers (HCs); a DV advocate was identified at each HC to facilitate implementation. The objective of this research is to evaluate the impact of policy and advocacy in improving the rate of DV screening.
Methods: A total of 2,274 female patients, ages 14 – 44, seen during the six month time period after policy implementation were selected for chart audit through random sampling. Charts were reviewed at each HC for documentation of domestic violence screening and detection.
Results: The overall screening rate for the 8 health centers was 16.7 %, ranging from 4.2% - 37.3%. Seventeen cases of current abuse were detected (4.5%) and 40 patients (10.6%) admitted to past abuse. Advocates at the 4 HCs with the highest screening rates provided direct medical care to patients while advocates at the other four HCs did not.
Conclusions: Based on previous research at the PDPH HCs, which showed a screening rate of 4.5% and no detected abuse, policy implementation and advocacy support improve screening and detection of DV. The variance between HCs may be attributable to the advocate position within the HC. At the individual HCs, the detection rate did not correlate with the screening rate, implying that the quality of screening needs to be further evaluated.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.