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Public health nurses: the identification of domestic violence and abuse

Public health nurses: the identification of domestic violence and abuse

Elliott, Helen ORCID: 0000-0002-8798-1037 (2021) Public health nurses: the identification of domestic violence and abuse. In: 8th Edition of the virtual conference on Nursing Education and Practice. International conference- Nursing congress, 15th-16th July 2021, Webinar. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Background: To identify the factors that might influence public health nurses’ ability to recognise domestic violence during home visits. Research question:What are the influencing factors that affect public health nurses’ ability to ask and identify the occurrence of domestic violence and abuse? Methods: The study took place in a community healthcare organisation in the UK. Public health nurses participated in the mixed-method study. Phase one: Surveys completed by twenty-seven public health nurses; Phase two: Ten semi-structured interviews. Phase three: An additional eleven semi-structured interviews. The survey and interview data were merged following analysis to present findings. Findings: The central factor identified in this study was that intuition, based on experience, was used in detecting the subtler signs of abuse. The results highlight that experience-based intuition influences the public health nurses’ ability to identify domestic abuse. When there is a language barrier, interpreters were available to assist in the communication between the public health nurse and client. However, findings have highlighted that interpreters may create barriers for women to disclose domestic violence and abuse due to concerns around confidentiality. There were also issues around the cultural competence of the public health nurses, which influenced the disclosure of abuse by women of Black and Asian minority ethnic groups. Public health nurses also highlighted a lack of confidence in asking male clients and those in same-sex relationships about domestic violence and abuse. Conclusions: This study found that training programmes should include different signs of abuse and consider fostering intuition to support domestic abuse identification. The role of interpreters and knowledge around cultural competence should be included in training programmes. A proposal is made for a new model to support domestic violence and abuse education and training.

Item Type: Conference or Conference Paper (Speech)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Public health nurses, health visitors, domestic abuse
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
R Medicine > RT Nursing
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences
Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Health Sciences (HEA)
Last Modified: 08 Oct 2021 00:23
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/33422

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