RESULTS OF A DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TRAINING-PROGRAM OFFERED TO THE STAFF OF URBAN-COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS

Introduction: Domestic violence (DV)! against women often goes unrecog nized by health care providers due to multiple barriers. In an effort to increase screening, identification, and referral for services, the RADAR Training Project was created for the health care staff of 12 fed erally qualified community health centers (CHCs). Methods: A two-phase evaluation was conducted to assess the intervention. Phase one evalua ted the health care providers' perceived knowledge and comfort pre-tra ining, post-training, and at 3 months follow-up. The second phase incl uded a medical chart re-vie ct of 4 CHCs to assess the rates of screen ing, documentation of abuse, assessment of safety, and referrals for h elp at baseline (6 months pre-training) as compared to the interventio n period (6 months post-training). Results: The health care providers' perceived level of knowledge and comfort increased significantly post -training and then later decreased at 3 months follow-up. The rate of screening for DV (25%; vs. 5%), suspicion of DV (6% vs. 2%), completio n of safety assessments (17% vs. 5%), and referrals (4% vs. 0%) increa sed significantly between the intervention and baseline periods. Howev er, the rates of documentation of abuse did not change. Conclusion: Th is intervention was successful in increasing provider perceived knowle dge and comfort; however, comfort decreased at follow-up. Additionally , the rates of screening and referrals increased 6 months post-trainin g. Health care provider training and support and integrated quality as surance mechanisms may be necessary to increase the overall rate of th ese activities, and to sustain this effort over time. Further study is needed to identify effective methods to increase provider comfort reg arding DV screening.