WUNRN
RESPONDING TO INTIMATE PARTNER
VIOLENCE & SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
World Health Organization Clinical & Policy
Guidelines 2013
Number
of pages: 56
Publication date: 2013
Languages: English
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- Prevalence
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A health-care
provider is likely to be the first professional contact for survivors of
intimate partner violence or sexual assault. Evidence suggests that women who
have been subjected to violence seek health care more often than non-abused women,
even if they do not disclose the associated violence. They also identify
health-care providers as the professionals they would most trust with
disclosure of abuse.
These guidelines are an unprecedented effort to equip healthcare
providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to respond to intimate partner
violence and sexual violence against women.
They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better
coordination and funding of services, and greater attention to responding to
sexual violence and partner violence within training programmes for health care
providers.
The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, and
cover:
- identification and clinical care for intimate
partner violence
- clinical care for sexual assault
- training relating to intimate partner violence
and sexual assault against women
- policy and programmatic approaches to delivering
services
- mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence.
The guidelines aim to raise awareness of violence against women among
health-care providers and policy-makers, so that they better understand the
need for an appropriate health-sector response. They provide standards that can
form the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into
health-care provider education.