Characteristics Associated With Being Asked About Violence Victimization in Health Care: A Swedish Random Population Study

vtj · 2022-09-24T23:56:33+00:00

Abstract:

Recommendations to routinely question patients about violence victimization have been around for many years; nonetheless, many patients suffering in the aftermath of violence go unnoticed in health care. The main aim of this study was to explore characteristics associated with being asked about experiences of violence in health care and thereby making visible victims that go unnoticed. In this study, we used cross-sectional survey data from 754 men (response rate 35%) and 749 women (response rate 38%) collected at random from the Swedish population, age 25–85. Questions were asked about experiences of emotional, physical, and sexual violence from both family, partner, and other perpetrators. Only 13.1% of those reporting some form of victimization reported ever being asked about experiences of violence in health care. Low subjective social status was associated with being asked questions (adj OR 2.23) but not with victimization, possibly indicating prejudice believes among providers concerning who can be a victim of violence. Other factors associated with increased odds of being asked questions were: being a woman (adj OR 2.09), young age (24–44 years, adj OR 6.90), having been treated for depression (adj OR 2.45) or depression and anxiety (adj OR 2.19) as well as reporting physical violence (adj OR 2.74) or polyvictimization (adj OR 2.85). The main finding of the study was that only few victims had been asked questions. For example, among those reporting ≥4 visits to a primary care physician during the past 12 months, 43% reported some form of victimization but only 6% had been asked questions. Our findings underline the importance of continuing to improve the health care response offered to victims of violence.

Note: OR stands for odds ratio, so OR 2.09 means a woman is roughly twice as likely than a man to be asked about her violence victimization during a medical appointment.

Also of interest might be this part from the paper's 'Discussion' section:

The kind of violence women and men are exposed to differ. As can be seen in Table 1, men report more physical violence and women more sexual violence. Also, women report more violence by intimate partners and men report more violence by other perpetrators. Being female was associated with being asked questions in health care. Considering that screening is generally recommended for intimate partner violence against women, it is not surprising that more women had been asked questions. Indeed, more than every fourth female victim who had been asked questions reported experiences of intimate partner violence only. However, not even 1 in 10 female respondents remembered ever being asked, while 1 in 3 had been victimized. Among victims who had been asked questions, men reported physical violence and “other” as the perpetrator more often than women, further underling the different forms of violence men and women are exposed to. When medical attention is needed in the aftermath of physical violence, it is likely given in the emergency room due to physical injuries. In accordance with this, men were most often asked about violence in the emergency room. Women, on the other hand, reported being asked more often in psychiatric care and often by a therapist. This may indicate that the kind of violence women are exposed to is more often chronic in nature and may cause more long-term psychological ill-health. Another possibility is that health care professionals do not consider violence victimization as a reason for psychological ill-health among men as often as they do for women. However, it should be underlined that some men are victims of severe and chronic forms of violence, including intimate partner violence (Hines & Douglas, 2010a, 2010b). Previous studies have found that men are reluctant to talk about violence victimization in health care, in part due to experiences with or expectations of health care professionals portraying men only as the perpetrator and not as victims of violence (Douglas & Hines, 2011; Simmons et al., 2016). Altogether, more than every third man (35.9%) reported some form of victimization, but only 4.0% of the male respondents had been asked questions.

Title	Characteristics Associated With Being Asked About Violence Victimization in Health Care: A Swedish Random Population Study
Author	vtj
Upvotes	8
Comments	1
Date	September 24, 2022 11:50 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/xn7to0/characteristics_associated_with_being_asked_about/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/characteristics-associated-with-being-asked-about.1215744 https://theredarchive.com/post/1215744

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