New guidelines extend opportunities for GPs to respond
In July 2006, new international consensus clinical guidelines — Management of the whole family when intimate partner violence is present: guidelines for primary care physicians — were launched simultaneously in Melbourne by the Victorian Community Council on Crime and Violence and at the General Practice and Primary Health Care Research Conference in Perth (Box).1
The full article is accessible to AMA members and paid subscribers. Login to read more or purchase a subscription now.
Please note: institutional and Research4Life access to the MJA is now provided through Wiley Online Library.
- 1. Victorian Government Department of Justice. Management of the whole family when intimate partner violence is present: guidelines for primary care physicians. Melbourne: The Department, 2006. http://www.racgp.org.au/guidelines/intimatepartnerabuse (accessed Oct 2006).
- 2. Krug EG, Dahlberg LL, Mercy JA, et al. World report on violence and health. Geneva: WHO, 2002.
- 3. Hegarty KL, Bush R. Prevalence and associations of partner abuse in women attending general practice: a cross sectional survey. Aust N Z J Public Health 2002; 26: 437-442.
- 4. Mouzos J, Rushworth C. Family homicide in Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2003.
- 5. Campbell JC. Health consequences of intimate partner violence. Lancet 2002; 359: 1331-1336.
- 6. Smith JL. The impact of partner abuse on children. In: Roberts G, Hegarty K, Feder G, editors. Intimate partner abuse and health professionals. London: Elsevier, 2006: 129-143.
- 7. Access Economics. The cost of domestic violence to the Australian economy, Parts 1 and 2. Canberra: Partnerships Against Domestic Violence, Office of the Status of Women, 2004.
- 8. Hegarty K, Feder G, Ramsay J. Identification of partner abuse in health care settings: should health professionals be screening? In: Roberts G, Hegarty K, Feder G, editors. Intimate partner abuse and health professionals. London: Elsevier, 2006: 82-92.
- 9. Taft A, Shakespeare J. Managing the whole family when women are abused by intimate partners: challenges for health professionals. In: Roberts G, Hegarty K, Feder G, editors. Intimate partner abuse and health professionals. London: Elsevier, 2006: 145-162.
- 10. US Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for family and intimate partner violence. Recommendation statement. Ann Fam Med 2004; 2: 156-160.
- 11. The AGREE Collaboration. Appraisal of guidelines research and evaluation (AGREE). 2003. http://www.agreecollaboration.org/ (accessed Oct 2006).
The Victorian Community Council on Crime and Violence (Victorian Department of Justice) provided financial assistance to undertake a systematic review, and funded the design and publication of the guidelines. We gratefully acknowledge their assistance, and that of the following collaborators:
Dr Lorraine Ferris, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, Canada.
Dr Kevin Hamberger, Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, USA.
Dr Elizabeth Hindmarsh, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ National Standing Committee on Quality Care, Sydney, NSW.
Dr Harriet McMillan, Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, and Paediatrics, McMaster University, Canada.
Dr Judy Shakespeare, General Practitioner and Research Associate, National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford, UK.
Dr Carole Warshaw, Associate Professor of Medicine, Rush University, and Director of the Domestic Violence and Mental Health Policy Initiative, Chicago, USA.
Dr Sylvie Lo Fo Wong, GP/Researcher, Department of General Practice, Family Medicine/Women’s Studies, University Medical Centre, St Radboud Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Dr Mary Zachary, formerly family practice physician and Assistant Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center Department of Family Medicine and Community Health in the Bronx, NY, USA.