Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a persistent issue that can occur in any setting regardless of its social, religious, or cultural characteristics. While this type of violence can affect any individual, women bear the burden of it the most frequently. Importantly, acts of violence can include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as well as coercive behaviors (for example, being forced to perform sexual acts with others) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017).
Main body
IPV is a widespread problem; it affects millions of people in the United States. The following statistics show how severe the issue is:
- 10% of women and 2% of men report experiencing stalking by a previous intimate partner (CDC, 2017);
- 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men (adults) report being victims of physical abuse from their intimate partner;
- 7% of men and 16% of women (adults) report being victims of sexual abuse, including such acts as rape, unwanted sexual contact, and sexual coercion (CDC, 2017).
It is important to note that intimate partner violence can start early in a relationship and continue throughout the entire lifespan regardless of whether partners are together or not. According to the CDC (2017) findings, 8.5 million women and 4 million men report experiencing IPV before turning 18, which points to the complexity of the issue at hand.
Models of care targeted at managing the adverse influence of IPV include comprehensive, planned care, and systems-model approaches. While there are other models, these three are the most researched by social and healthcare scientists:
- According to Joyner and Mash (2012), a comprehensive model for intimate partner violence implies the use of a “cooperative inquiry group that consists of nurses, doctors, and researchers” (p. 399). It was revealed that the collaboration between different care providers ensured that victims of IPV received the appropriate level of care to address both physical and emotional complications.
- The planned care model has some characteristics of the comprehensive model of care and also includes the collaboration with communities. The model requires healthcare professionals from IPV facilities to implement effective practices for stratifying risks, educating themselves, measuring, monitoring, and providing feedback on the outcomes of implemented interventions.
- System-level models of care are targeted at achieving sustainability and implementing systematic changes in processes that have occurred over time (Hamberger, Rhodes, & Brown, 2015). Starting with establishing collaboration between decision-makers, leading to the evaluation of appropriate measures, and ending with the identification of future direction, system-level models of care offer healthcare personnel evidence for success.
Conclusion
Apart from identifying available models of care for victims, it is important also to discuss prevention strategies to stop IPV from occurring altogether. As proposed by CDC (2017), strategies that can stop IPV include the following:
- Teaching healthy and safe intimate relational skills: counseling and training for couples and socio-emotional learning programs;
- Creating protecting environments: improving safety at schools, modifying environments in neighborhoods;
- Engaging influential persons in the conversation about IPV: family-based programs, lectures from social advocates and representatives, bystander empowerment through meetings and protests;
- Strengthening economic support for vulnerable families: increasing the financial reinforcement for households, providing jobs to parents unable to provide enough for their children;
- Disrupting the development of abusive and violent behaviors in the entire community: early childhood home visits to identify potential inhibitors for violence, parental training, mental treatment of at-risk children.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2017). Preventing intimate partner violence. Web.
Hamberger, L. K., Rhodes, K., & Brown, J. (2015). Screening and intervention for intimate partner violence in healthcare settings: Creating sustainable system-level programs. Journal of Women’s Health, 24(1), 86-91.
Joyner, K., & Mash, B. (2012). A comprehensive model for intimate partner violence in South African primary care: Action research. BMC Health Services Research, 12, 399.