Detecting intimate partner abuse within clinical settings: self‐report or an interview

Routine screening for intimate partner abuse (IPA) has been recommended within health-care settings. However, the instruments and methods that are most effective in detecting abuse continues to be debated in the literature.To evaluate the effectiveness of two screening procedures/methods, a self-reporting questionnaire and an interview, in detecting women abuse within an emergency department (ED) and a high-risk prenatal care clinic (HRPCC). Comparison was made related to missing data based on the frequency of missing data.Cross-sectional design was used in the study.Data were collected at one time in 2006, over a period of 7 months, from 101 women seeking health-care services at an ED and 107 pregnant women in their first trimester attending a HRPCC.Two methods were used, a self-reporting instrument and a face-to-face interview with a nurse or a midwife to compare the frequency of women's disclosure of abuse.A variety of prior and current abuse experiences were disclosed by each method. The women however disclosed physical abuse more often in the face-to-face interview. The women at the ED disclosed emotional and sexual abuse by an intimate partner more often when using the self-reporting instrument; but the women at the HRPCC disclosed the same ratio of emotional and sexual abuse regardless of the method used. The face-to-face interview had fewer missing data regarding disclosure of abuse. Contradictory to what has previously been reported in the literature, there were no clear-cut results found regarding which of the methods were more effective in revealing abuse; rather, for some of the women, disclosure was based on a combination of the two methods used and the type of abuse inquired about.Implications might focus on using different methods within different clinical settings, e.g. face-to-face interviews at an ED, but questionnaire(s) at a HRPCC; or by using the mixed methods approach within the same clinical setting. Such a decision should however be based on the purpose of screening for women abuse and on how and in what way clinicians and researchers would intervene with the women.