Reports of police calls for service as a risk indicator for intimate partner violence.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of asking female emergency department (ED) patients about police calls for service as a possible indicator of intimate partner violence (IPV).


METHODS
Trained research assistants screened female, adult, English-speaking patients presenting to an urban university ED 7 am to midnight, 7 days per week during the 2006-2007 academic year. Patients were asked two commonly used IPV screening questions regarding past-year experience with physical violence or threat by an intimate partner and whether or not the police had been called due to a fight between themselves and a male partner.


RESULTS
Of the 4,984 patients screened, 3.9% screened positive for an IPV-related police call in the past 12 months; more than one-third (37.8%) of those screened negative for IPV on the traditional screening questions. The question about an IPV-related police call for service identified an additional 74 cases of possible IPV, representing 1.5% of the overall sample or a 30.8% increase over those identified with the traditional IPV screening questions.


CONCLUSIONS
Adding an additional question regarding police calls to standard IPV screening could alert healthcare providers to possible IPV risk.
Dichter
Melissa E
ME
School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mdichter@sp2.upenn.edu
Rhodes
Karin V
KV
D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008875:Middle Aged; D016495:Police; D012306:Risk; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult