Screening for intimate partner violence supported by refugee women

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-12-19 06:00

Australia; NSW; VIC

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Most refugee women support attempts to screen them for signs of intimate partner violence, according to an Australian trial. The researchers say about a third of refugee women in Australia experience intimate partner violence, so they trialled screening for women accessing four settlement support services. Surveying 321 women who had accessed these services, the researchers asked them how they felt about the intimate partner violence screening questions they had been asked. Of those who remembered being asked, 93% said they were comfortable with the questions being asked, the researchers say. Overall, they say 84% of the women surveyed agreed with services asking those questions. The researchers say the women reported speaking in their own language, with a female worker and with a worker who showed care while asking as important factors for encouraging disclosure, as well as trust in the privacy of the service.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Wollongong, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), The University of Melbourne, The University of New South Wales

Funder: This study was funded by the Australian Research Council (LP190101183) and SSI, a large non-government agency providing settlement services based in Australia. The Australian Research Council had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. SSI had two chief investigators on the study governance committee who contributed ideas to the study’s implementation, data analysis and preparation of this manuscript, while at all times the University of Wollongong investigators retained full control of study design, implementation, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript.

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