Women's attitudes to being asked about exposure to violence

Objective: to examine women's attitudes to being questioned by their midwif e, during and after pregnancy about exposure to violence. Design: an explorative study using content analysis of one open-ended quest ion. Setting: all antenatal clinics in Uppsala, a medium-sized Swedish universit y town. Participants: all women registered for antenatal care before 32 weeks of pr egnancy, during a period of 6 months. Measurements: all women were assessed regarding abuse, using the Abuse Asse ssment Screen (McFarlane 1993) twice during pregnancy and once again more t han four weeks after the birth. On the last occasion the women were asked t o respond to an open-ended written question worded: 'Please describe how yo u felt about being questioned by your midwife at the antenatal clinic conce rning violence'. Those women who reported violence and those who did not we re compared regarding their attitude to being asked about violence. Findings: 879 women were presented with the open-ended question. Eighty per cent found the questioning acceptable, 12% neither acceptable nor unaccept able, 5% both acceptable and unacceptable, and only 3% found it unacceptabl e. There was no difference between those who reported abuse and those who d id not, as to whether the questioning was unacceptable. Conclusions and implications for practice: the findings suggest: that most pregnant women are not averse to being asked, by their midwife, about expos ure to violence, As part of the identification of risk factors that is carr ied out in every pregnancy the midwife should ask about exposure to violenc e at the antenatal clinic. To feel confident when raising the subject of ab use, midwives must be taught about: the nature of intimate-partner violence , and appropriate referral and intervention strategies. (C) 2001 Harcourt P ublishers Ltd.