COMPARISON OF ATTITUDE OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE PHYSICIANS AND NURSES TOWARDS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Background: Domestic violence (DV) against women has increased during the past few years and became an important public health problem. Personal values and beliefs of primary health care workers can affect both diagnostic and management procedures adopted to deal with battered women. Objectives: The current study was formulated to compare attitude of physicians and nurses towards DV against women. Methods: All physicians and nurses currently working in the primary health care centers in Kuwait (2516) were asked to answer a self-administered questionnaire. Out of them, 1553 completed the questionnaire with an overall response rate of 61.7%. Results: Physicians tended to have a higher positive overall attitude score towards violence against women than nurses (60.75 + 13.16% compared with 58.3 + 13.82%, P 0.001), with a mean percent score of 75.73 + 21.80% compared with 69.7 + 21.3% for good reasons to hit women domain. No significant differences were revealed between the two groups for either the relationship between partners domain (42.36 + 15.37% compared with 42.9 + 15.99%, P = 0.679) or the management domain (58.39 + 17.11% compared with 58.7 + 20.59%, P = 0.104). Conclusion: Relatively low positive attitude scores were recorded by primary care physicians and nurses Yet, physicians tended to have higher scores than nurses. There is a great need to improve attitude of health care workers, especially nurses, about DV against women through properly planned training programs.