Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Aug 1, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 4, 2025 - Sep 29, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 14, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
“What I Might Have Been Missing by Not Asking These Questions”: Clinicians’ Decisions to Screen for IPV Use and Experience and Observed Impacts
ABSTRACT
Background:
Recent research has found that concurrent intimate partner violence (IPV) experience (i.e., victimization) and use (i.e., perpetration) may be more common than experiencing or using IPV in isolation. Therefore, screening for IPV experience and use concurrently is needed to provide resources and connect patients to care.
Objective:
In this work, we explore how clinicians made decisions to use a screening protocol for IPV use and experience and their perceptions of how concurrent screening impacted patients, clinicians, and the healthcare system.
Methods:
We conducted qualitative interviews with 19 clinicians who participated in a pilot screening implementation initiative and analyzed the data using thematic analysis.
Results:
We identified four themes: (1) new screening implementation is challenging; (2) screening for IPV use and experience concurrently can be uncomfortable; (3) pivoting strategies can make screening easier; (4) screening for IPV use and experience concurrently is impactful.
Conclusions:
Findings demonstrate the need for and importance of screening concurrently for IPV use and experience while bringing awareness to difficulties with implementing any new screener. Results highlight opportunities for pivoting strategies and ongoing training and education around managing concurrent IPV use and experience. Clinical Trial: n/a
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.