Abstract
Objective
Childhood exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive public health
epidemic with profound impact on child health. While past work has demonstrated how
abusive partners exert control over IPV survivors in a variety of settings (eg workplace,
courts, home), scant research has examined how IPV power and control behaviors manifest
themselves in pediatric healthcare settings. In this study, we explore the perspectives
of pediatric IPV experts about: (1) behaviors used by abusive partners to control
IPV survivors in pediatric healthcare settings; (2) how controlling behaviors impact
healthcare access and quality; and (3) recommendations for the pediatric healthcare
team.
Methods
Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with pediatric IPV experts recruited
through snowball sampling. Interviews were individually coded by two research team
members and analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results
Twenty-eight pediatric IPV experts participated. Participants described several types
of controlling behaviors including limiting healthcare access, dominating conversations
during medical visits, controlling medical decision making, and manipulating perceptions
of the healthcare team. Participants acknowledged the challenges of recognizing controlling
behaviors and provided several recommendations to addressing behaviors such as leveraging
the expertise of multidisciplinary teams.
Conclusions
Participants described how abusive partners may attempt to control or discredit their
partners in pediatric healthcare settings, using subtle behaviors that may be easily
missed by the healthcare team. These results set the stage for further research and
clinical practice innovation including triangulating the findings with IPV survivors,
examining how frequently these behaviors occur, and developing multidisciplinary IPV
training for the pediatric healthcare team.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: February 22, 2020
Accepted:
February 15,
2020
Received:
November 22,
2019
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Identification
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 by Academic Pediatric Association
