APN RESPONSE TO INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: PROFESSIONAL, WORK AND PERSONAL FACTORS
Rationale/Conceptual Basis/Background: Intimate partner violence affects one in four women in the US and is the leading cause of maternal death during the prenatal and first year post-partum periods. Older women victims suffer earlier death from all causes. IPV is under diagnosed and undertreated based on large surveys from multiple treatment settings. APNs are now providing health care to large numbers of potential victims as their primary access to medical care, thus they are important as diagnosticians and treating clinicians.
Methods: A national quantitative survey of APNs was performed. Data collected were professional factors (previous IPV education, IPV knowledge, work experience, and role expectations), work environment factors (screening tools and protocols, privacy to screen, workload, and workplace supports), personal factors (secondary traumatic stress [STS], resilience, and general self-efficacy), and self-efficacy to treat IPV.
Results: A representative sample of 494 APNs was obtained after deleting cases with missing data. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the factors most highly correlated with self-efficacy to treat IPV were previous IPV education, self-reported clinical practices, years of practice, role beliefs, and IPV knowledge. Institutional screening tools and protocols, resilience, and general self-efficacy were positively correlated with preparedness to treat IPV. Secondary traumatic stress (STS) was negatively correlated with self-efficacy to treat IPV.
Implications: APNs with strong role beliefs, knowledge, education, and experience with IPV reported the best self-efficacy to treat IPV. Health care organizations must provide adequate support in the form of screening tools and protocols, education on IPV condition specifics, as well as self-care for the prevention of STS for APNs to effectively identify and engage those patients who may be suffering from IPV