Intimate partner violence (IPV) is prevalent and has lasting impacts on the health and well-being of the entire family involved. Unfortunately, very little research and guidance about how to address perpetration of IPV in the health care setting, especially among primary care physicians who are in a role to potentially intervene has been available until now.<\/p>\n
Researchers from BUSM reviewed the existing literature related to physicians\u2019 interactions with male perpetrators of IPV and summarized the recommendations including assessing for lethality, readiness to change and comorbid medical conditions that could impact treatment, such as substance abuse and mental illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cExperts agree that referrals to a Batterer Intervention Program should be the primary intervention. If there are none locally available or the patient is unwilling to go, then a physician should refer the abuser to a therapist who has been trained specifically to work with perpetrators of IPV,\u201d explained corresponding author Brian Penti, MD, assistant professor of family medicine at BUSM. \u201cIn addition, physicians should be prepared to offer education about the negative impact of IPV on the victim, on any children and on the abuser himself,\u201d added Dr. Penti, a family medicine physician at Boston Medical Center.<\/p>\n
According to Dr. Penti, physicians should address any untreated substance abuse or mental health issues. Referral to couples\u2019 therapy should generally be avoided. Physicians should continue to have regular follow-up with their male patients to support them in changing their behavior.<\/p>\n
The researchers believe further research is needed to assess the role the health care system can have in preventing IPV perpetration. These findings appear in the Journal of American Board of Family Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Researchers from BUSM reviewed existing literature related to physicians\u2019 interactions with victims of IPV and found that a Batterer Intervention Program should be the primary intervention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12772,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91,90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59656,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59548\/revisions\/59656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}