Jazmine Hurley, University of Utah
Experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) directly affects the mental, emotional, sexual, and physical health of the victim. The purpose of this study is to examine the short- and long-term effectiveness of the University of Utah’s IPV curriculum for primary care resident physicians. Primary care residents participate in a paper or online self-administered survey in their first year (a pre-training survey - before they participated in the IPV training program) and third year in a residency program (a post-training survey - after they participated in the IPV training program). The survey includes demographic questions (e.g. specialty, gender, age), and the knowledge, attitude, and clinical behaviors related to IPV. As of October 12, 2017, 163 residents at the University of Utah Medical School participated in the pre-training survey. Less than 20 % of the participants (17.2%) agreed with the statement “I feel confident that I can make the appropriate referrals for IPV victims.” Only 1.2% of the participants were confident to identify patients who are victims of IPV. Half of the participants were comfortable discussing the topic of IPV with patients or the parents of patients. Nearly 90% of the participants selected agree or strongly agree that the abuse of women was a medical issue, and the other 10% selected neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. Training residents in IPV may help them realize that IPV recognition is under their scope of practice as doctors, and that there is room for immense improvement in training and education within medical training.