title: [Workers in primary health care and partner violence against women].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Morbidity associated to partner violence against women (PVAW) justify these patients repeated visits to Health Services. Primary Care is the ideal place for detectión and first aid, due to its easy accesibility and continuated assistance. Nevertheless, numbers show important difficulties to achieve this goal. Our aim is to find out the level of knowledge, opinions, awareness about organizacional barriers and improvement proposals suggested by the workers of primary care.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional descriptive study using an anonymous and voluntary survey during the months of August and September 2010, targeted to all professionals who perform their work in a Primary Care Area of Madrid. We made a descriptive analysis of variables and used chi(2) to compare the answers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Answer rate is 170 (21.4%). There are stereotypes regarding battered woman and perpetrador. 118 (70.7%) professionals believe that this is a major problem and 154 (91.7%) that usually goes unnoticed. 91 (55.2%) know their legal commitments. 73 (51.8%) think that there are organizational barriers, among them: the burden of care 50(29%), lack of specific training 40(23.5), lack of knowledge about the procedure to be followed 20(11.8%) and about the professional responsabilities 12 (7%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  All profesional categoríes showed an average level of knowledge, except for social workers that was high. Primary Care workers think that PVAW is an important issue that usually goes unnoticed. Half of them know the legal commitments o detección. There are organizacional barriers and stereotypes.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Medicina Preventiva, Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón, Alcorcón, Madrid, España. abarredondo@fhalcorcon.es
authors.forename: Ana Belén
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Arredondo-Provecho
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Broco-Barredo
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Alcalá-Ponce de León
authors.forename: Araceli
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rivera-Álvarez
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Jiménez Trujillo
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gallardo-Pino
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care; D013030:Spain; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D055815:Young Adult