Addition of an Intimate Partner Violence Intervention to a Nurse Home Visitation Program

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is ubiquitous and its health consequences are well known, but there is limited evidence from randomized trials to support effective interventions to interrupt violence within intimate relationships. In this issue ofJAMA, Jack and colleagues report no additional improvement in quality of life after adding an intensive intervention to address IPV to an already existing nurse home visitation program for pregnant women expecting their first child. The standard program group and the intervention group both demonstrated improvement in the primary outcome, interview-assessed quality of life at baseline and every 6 months until 24 months after delivery, so no benefit could be attributed to the intervention. Although IPV training was not a component of the standard nurse home visitation program, expectant mothers were routinely assessed for abuse and referred for services as needed, and this level of assessment and support may have been sufficient to improve the participants ’ quality of life without the enhancement of the IPV intervention. That is, nurses in both the standard program group and the intervention group were knowledgeable and ready to assist women who had been abused.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research