NCJ Number
119055
Date Published
1988
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This chapter explores the medical response to abused women, with emphasis on security, advocacy, and empowerment, which guides the battered women's shelter movement and is also the most appropriate for health care providers.
Abstract
The medical response to abuse has been slow and sporadic. Though the woman views her situation as a crisis and an ongoing social emergency, emergency clinicians view her seemingly minor injuries and sense of impending "emergency" as inappropriate. Two different studies of the emergency medical response, the New Haven study and the Philadelphia study, are presented to assess whether an intervention can be reasonably expected to prevent -- or at least reduce -- ongoing battering. The results of these studies indicate a sequence of events in treating battered women. Starting from symptomatic treatment of discrete injuries, medical care progresses to labeling and psychiatric referral as secondary psychosocial problems arise. Inappropriate medical responses are related to health providers' conceptions of battering and of battered women as patients, the lack of accurate technical knowledge about abuse, and sexism. One possible solution to this problem is providing feminist training with adequate technical assistance and political support. 27 references.