Asst. Nursing Prof. Camille Burnett received a $312,000 grant by the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the most effective way to get pregnant women to report abuse.
Intimate Partner Violence affects approximately 1.5 million women each year, and as many as 324,000 who are pregnant, according to the Center for Disease Control. The CDC’s definition of IPV includes physical and sexual violence, threats and psychological abuse. These numbers are likely underestimates because most incidents do not get reported.
Burnett, a Roberts Scholar, is currently researching whether surveying pregnant women for IPV through computer programs is more effective than questioning them in person.
To do this, Burnett is conducting a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the “Domestic Violence Enhanced Home Intervention” study, which involves two parts. DOVE I uses in-home medical visits for pregnant women. DOVE II uses tablets to query for abuse.
The DOVE study’s Principal Investigator is John Hopkins University Prof. Phyllis Sharps. University Nursing Prof. Linda Bullock conducted the DOVE I study in Missouri and served as co-principal investigator of DOVE II, conducted in rural Missouri and Virginia.
A typical domestic violence intervention includes “safety planning, checking in with the women regarding her situation, resources, assessing the danger assessment, opening the door to communication about the woman’s situation,” Burnett said.
The DOVE intervention goes further than this.
Dove II aims to reduce women's fear or embarrassment which may inhibit reporting partner violence by examining whether inquiring about abuse through tablets will increase reporting rates.
“The tablet is not as personal; it gives the woman more privacy to reveal sensitive matters and also not having to admit it to [a] health professional,” Burnett said. “This creates less embarrassment, less shame perhaps. [It's] easier to admit the abuse to yourself quietly or anonymously than saying it out loud.”
The hope is that this will help uncover some of the many cases of IPV that go unreported each year.
“The tablet creates another opportunity to screen women for exposure to abuse which in turn could potentially identify more women screening positive for abuse,” Burnett said. “It can identify those women based on their responses that are in abusive relationships, and refine and expand their definition of abuse. [It] helps also to identify women in healthy relationships.”
Intervening in IPV is especially important in cases where the victim is pregnant, Burnett said.
“[The risk] becomes heightened during pregnancy and during the postpartum period as there is the potential for harm for both the mother and her unborn child and eventually the very young infant,” she said. “Violence during pregnancy has also been shown to be more severe than other times in a woman’s life, due to an increased risk for homicide.”
Burnett’s study may have an impact on policy decisions under the Affordable Care Act’s Home Visiting Program, which involves home visits to reduce a variety of risks, including domestic violence.
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