A critical pathway for intimate partner violence across the continuum of care.

OBJECTIVE

The authors developed an interdisciplinary critical pathway for intimate partner violence (IPV) assessment and intervention for use across health care settings. Intimate partner violence may be emotional, physical, and/or sexual and involves coercion and control by one partner over the other.

DESIGN

A pathway developed with input from focus groups of battered women was subjected to a modified Delphi technique to improve the pathway's scientific accuracy and feasibility.

SETTING

The study was conducted in one urban, one suburban, and one rural hospital with IPV advocacy programs in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS: Four researchers and 13 clinicians participated in the validation, with at least one physician, one nurse, and one social worker or IPV counselor from each hospital.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Each element of the pathway was analyzed for the degree of consensus on scientific accuracy and feasibility.

RESULTS

Consensus on the scientific accuracy and feasibility of the pathway was achieved after three rounds of the Delphi process.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first known critical pathway for IPV. It addresses physical and mental health and safety and has content validity affirmed by an interdisciplinary panel of experts. Further process and outcome evaluation is warranted and invited.