Citation

Zlotnick C, Powrie RO. J. Interpers. Violence 2001; 16(8): 841-845.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/088626001016008007

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The present study examined the rate of documentation of inquiry about domestic violence status by 3rd year internal medicine residents who participated in an ambulatory and inpatient general medicine consult service. Between 6 and 16 consults for each resident were randomly selected and reviewed for the presence of somatic complaints that are believed to be markers of potential domestic violence (DV). Of the 674 consults reviewed for documentation of inquiries regarding whether the woman was or had been a victim of DV, 92.7% were classified as appropriate for domestic violence screening. In only 9 of the 674 consults reviewed was the presence or absence of DV noted. The findings of this study suggest that third year residents on consultative services at our center are not documenting DV screening as part of their evaluation of women with somatic complaints that have been associated with DV.