This tool is for primary care offices (pediatric, family medicine, internal medicine and Obstetrics/gynecology). It was developed by modifying Dr. Jeffrey Coben's "Delphi Instrument for Hospital Domestic Violence Programs" (http://store.yahoo.com/fvpfstore/evaluation.html). Using a Delphi process of consensus, a national panel of family violence experts reviewed Dr. Coben's instrument and made suggestions about how to modify it to make if applicable for primary care offices that see a range of patients and need to assess for family violence (child abuse, intimate partner violence, elder abuse and sexual assault). The tool was presented at three meetings (advocacy, clinician and health plan) for additional feedback. The new instrument was pilot tested in primary care offices (n=31) to assess face validity and to develop a range of normal scores. The instrument will be available at www.endabuse.org and may be downloaded and filled out by the office staff member who is the most familiar with the family violence efforts in the office. The directions are imbedded within the instrument. Offices that are attached to a hospital may prefer to complete Dr. Coben's Delphi Tool. Eventually we hope to have a computer program that will score the instrument and give offices feedback about where improvement is needed. Links within the instrument can be selected to identify resources at the Family Violence Prevention Fund that may be useful to the office. The tool may be used to assess family violence efforts in primary care at the beginning and intermittently (every 6 months, every year, every few years) when focusing on family violence as a quality improvement goal. It is meant to be a tool for identifying deficiencies and so that they can be remedied and the care to patients living with violence and abuse can be improved. The project was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Faculty Scholar grant. You can direct questions to the author at: zink0003@umn.edu Therese Zink, MD, MPH Assistant Professor Dept. of Family and Community Medicine University of Minnesota MMC 81 420 Delaware Street SE Minneapolis MN 55455 phone 612 625-9197 fax 612 624-2613 The author is collecting scores to further develop the range of normal scales. Please send your completed instrument, with your office name removed by email or fax. View the Online Tool |