Making Intimate Partner Violence Vital

Abstract

Intimate Partner Violence, or IPV, is a physically and mentally violent phenomenon prevalent in today’s society. In order to follow guidelines by governing bodies of health care, a four-year university in the southeast wanted to implement a validated, evidence-based screening tool and a subsequent protocol. After a literature review of existing screening tools, the HARK screening tool was chosen and administered to every student. All three students who responded "yes" to the screening questions and wished to know about their options had a corresponding protocol that was correctly filled out. Discoveries included identifying that gender and sexual identities were diverse in those who answered "yes" to one of the screening questionnaires, regardless of their wish to speak further about their options. Another finding revealed that IPV's “humiliation” aspect was the most commonly experienced. This discovery is important because certain existing screenings do not ask about humiliation. These findings support the literature that all students, not just female-identifying patients, should be screened for IPV as everybody is at risk.