Nurses’ Preparedness to Care for Women Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

This critique employs the quantitative article by Sundborg, Saleh-Stattin, Wändell, and Törnkvist (2012) titled “nurses’ preparedness to care for women exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: a quantitative study in primary health care.” The study was based on the assessment of the preparedness of nurses to address Intimate Partner Violence and found the majority of them unprepared. This critique evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of all the sections of the article.

Introduction

Even if the title of this article is a long one, it expansively articulates the implication of the study. Instead of the introduction, the authors chose to call it background, which serves the same purpose. The background affirms that Intimate Partner Violence usually has a profound effect on the health of women (Sundborg et al., 2012). In this regard, nurses operating in primary health care should be ready to identify victims and give suitable interventions as cases of Intimate Partner Violence are normally many in primary health care. Regardless of that, the study affirms that caregivers in primary health care are more unprepared to notice cases of Intimate Partner Violence and effectively intervene as compared to specialists in other areas, for instance, emergency, as well as gynecological care. In view of such discoveries, special consideration ought to be given to enhancing readiness and effectiveness of nurses in primary health care (Hellmuth, Jaquier, Swan, & Sullivan, 2014). In the background, the authors draw the attention of the readers as they get the urge to know the best means of addressing the problem of Intimate Partner Violence, which is a sensitive and widespread issue.

Statement of Purpose

The authors failed to include a clear statement of purpose and, as an alternative, incorporated it into the background. Towards the end of the background, the authors make known the arguments of conviction upon which they base the statement of purpose. Thus, the background depicts the statement of purpose as the assessment of the readiness of nurses in the identification and provision of quality care to women suffering Intimate Partner Violence that visit the primary health care (Sundborg et al., 2012). This shows a deplorable manner of expressing the statement of purpose because it ought to be apart and easily decipherable.

Research Questions

The authors failed to include any research question or hypothesis in the article. Instead, they chose to employ strong statements in the background to support the focal point of their study. However, it would have been better for the authors to use research questions as a detailed ingemination of the purpose of the study.

Literature Review

In spite of the plentiful use of referencing in the background section, the authors failed to include a review of the literature section. This leaves the readers to assume that the authors decided to incorporate it in the background. The approach taken by the authors is poor since the background is too short and incomprehensive to represent the literature review adequately. Furthermore, the background does not superbly illustrate the manner in which nurses in different countries across the globe have applied their knowledge to tackle Intimate Partner Violence and enhance the quality of care.

Methodology

From the 174 public health care centers in Stockholm County, 40 were randomly selected to take part in the study but one declined (Sundborg et al., 2012). The selected sample size was big enough to accomplish the quantitative study successfully. The sample employed in the study is excellently documented, encompassing even the ones that rejected participation, and is backed by the demographic variables such as number of years working as a nurse, age, and sex. Nevertheless, the sample was prejudiced in that out of the 191 participants there was just a single female participant thus leading to overrepresentation of male nurses. This could have influenced the outcomes of the study since the preparedness of female nurses was poorly represented.

Presentation and Analysis of Data

The development and evaluation of the employed questionnaire ensured the application of the most effective questions. The analysis of the data was done using statistical software STATA 9.0, expressive details in terms of frequency tables were created for easy description of the data, and Pearson’s chi-square test was applied in the testing of numerical significance (Sundborg et al., 2012). This made the analysis efficient and simple to understand.

Discussion and Conclusion

Just 50% of the nurses that participated in the study mentioned that they at all times asked a woman regarding Intimate Partner Violence when it was suspicious but just did it when the patient had noticeable injuries. Most participants also felt unprepared (Sundborg et al., 2012). Such inadequacies in the vigilance to care for women under Intimate Partner Violence amongst the participants could result in delaying the provision of suitable care for such women. This is a challenging situation, especially because sentiments of unpreparedness are linked to the inability to recognize women exposed to Intimate Partner Violence.

Overall Evaluation

The results of the article could be employed in the development of educational programs for nurses operating in primary health care with the purpose of making them adequately equipped to care for women under Intimate Partner Violence. The article tackles the sensitive topic of Intimate Partner Violence poorly starting with the unbiased sample, where the majority is ill-prepared to address Intimate Partner Violence.

References

Hellmuth, J. C., Jaquier, V., Swan, S. C., & Sullivan, T. P. (2014). Elucidating posttraumatic stress symptom profiles and their correlates among women experiencing bidirectional intimate partner violence. Journal of clinical psychology, 70(10), 1008-1021.

Sundborg, E. M., Saleh-Stattin, N., Wändell, P., & Törnkvist, L. (2012). Nurses’ preparedness to care for women exposed to intimate partner violence: A quantitative study in primary health care. BMC nursing, 11(1), 1-11.