title: Identifying domestic violence in primary care practice.
abstract: To improve detection of domestic violence as a problem for women seeking primary care, we compared the addition of a single question about domestic violence on an existing self-administered health history form, to discretionary inquiry alone. We studied 689 consecutive new women patients in an internal medicine practice. Domestic violence identification rose from 0% in the control group with discretionary inquiry alone to 11.6% (95% confidence interval 8.8-14.4%) when the health history form included the following question: "At any time has a partner ever hit you, kicked you, or otherwise physically hurt you?" The addition of a single question can increase identification of domestic violence as a problem in patients' lives.
authors.affiliation: Evans Department of Clinical Research, Boston University Medical Center, MA 02118, USA.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Freund
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Bak
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Blackhall
mesh_terms: D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007388:Internal Medicine; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D012307:Risk Factors