Identifying Intimate Partner Violence during Pregnancy in Prenatal Care Settings

More than 324,000 women each year are estimated as having experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy. Correctly identifying women experiencing all forms and severity of IPV is necessary to inform the implementation of interventions to prevent and treat IPV. This can optimally be accomplished with data from accurate screening instruments. The United States Preventative Services Task force has recently recommended that all women who are pregnant should be screened for IPV over the course of their pregnancy and postnatal visits. Currently, clinical practice and research are hindered by the lack of validated IPV screening measurements for a pregnant population. The current review examined accuracy measures of empirically tested IPV screening measures, and evaluated them for use in prenatal health care settings. Based on the information collected and presented, recommendations regarding which screens are, and are not, appropriate to use in prenatal care settings to identify IPV were presented. Further rigorous studies are needed to identify and evaluate screening measurements and procedures to increase sensitivity and suitability for use in a variety of clinical settings for pregnant women