Physicians' attitudes toward domestic violence

• Main Authors: Knežević Snežana B., Gajović Ivan Z., Trikoš Bojana Č.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serbian Medical Society, Belgrade 2018-01-01
• Series: Opšta Medicina
• Subjects: domestic violence; public health; primary health care; education; women
• Online Access: https://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0354-7132/2018/0354-71321804063K.pdf

Introduction. Physicians should undertake preventive and intervening activities in order to respond adequately to cases of domestic violence. Objective. The aim of this study is to establish what physicians' attitudes toward domestic violence are, how educated they are, whether they apply the Special protocol, provided by the Serbian Ministry of Health, whether they report violence, and how well they know community resources involved in the matter. Method. The questionnaire was compiled and distributed to physicians at an expert meeting at the Health Center, Kraljevo in November 2017. Results analysis consisted of: counting, minimum and maximum values, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and x2-test, Excel (2010). Results. The study included 118 physicians (70.3% female, 29.7% male). The majority of the respondents were ages 41-50 (39.8%), the average age was 45.54 ± 9.2. The general practitioners held prevalence (61.9%). A majority (63.6%) have met with the cases of domestic violence. In the group with 11-20 years of service, there were 19.5% undereducated respondents, which bears statistical significance (p=0.030). Physicians working in the city were more likely to self-educate and so were the specialists. Of all of the respondents, 39.8% were not familiar with the Special protocol, statistically significantly more male doctors (p=0.004), physicians working in the city (p=0.008) and those working at the secondary level of health care (p=0.009). In the cases where violence was suspected, 16.9% of doctors filled in the Form for recording and documenting violence. Domestic violence is regularly reported by 41.5% of the respondents. Psychological violence is the most common type of violence (51.7%). Lacking time to do a routine check on the domestic violence was prevalent in the 61-70 age group, 32.2%. Awareness of city-wide cooperation is spread among 30.5% of the respondents. General practitioners more often had the phone number to help the victims in their officies, with statistical significance (p=0.037). Domestic violence is condemned by 90.7% of the respondents. Conclusion. Evaluate personal, organizational and systematic factors that can improve the implementation of the Special protocol and more effectively wrestle the problem.