Using realist evaluation to assess primary healthcare teams’ responses to intimate partner violence in Spain

Objective: Few evaluations have assessed the factors triggering an adequate health care response to intimate partner violence. This article aimed to: 1) describe a realist evaluation carried out in Spain to ascertain why, how and under what circumstances primary health care teams respond to intimate partner violence, and 2) discuss the strengths and challenges of its application. Methods: We carried out a series of case studies in four steps. First, we developed an initial programme theory (PT1), based on interviews with managers. Second, we refined PT1 into PT2 by testing it in a primary healthcare team that was actively responding to violence. Third, we tested the refined PT2 by incorporating three other cases located in the same region. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected and thick descriptions were produced and analysed using a retroduction approach. Fourth, we analysed a total of 15 cases, and identified combinations of contextual factors and mechanisms that triggered an adequate response to violence by using qualitative comparative analysis. Results: There were several key mechanisms —the teams’ self-efficacy, perceived preparation, women-centred care—, and contextual factors —an enabling team environment and managerial style, the presence of motivated professionals, the use of the protocol and accumulated experience in primary health care—that should be considered to develop adequate primary health-care responses to violence. Conclusion: The full application of this realist evaluation was demanding, but also well suited to explore a complex intervention reflecting the situation in natural settings.

Factors Associated With Women’s Reporting of Intimate Partner Violence in Spain

In Spain, in 2013, the 20% of women who were murdered by their partner had reported him previously. We analyze the 2011 Spanish-Macrosurvey on Gender Violence to identify and analyze the prevalence of and the principal factors associated with reporting a situation of intimate partner violence (IPV) and the main reasons women cite for not filing such reports, or for subsequently deciding to withdraw their complaint. Overall, 72.8% of women exposed to IPV did not report their aggressor. The most frequent reasons for not reporting were not giving importance to the situation (33.9%), and fear and lack of trust in the reporting process (21.3%). The main reasons for withdrawing the complaint were cessation of the violence (20.0%), and fear and threats (18.2%). The probability of reporting increased among women with young children who were abused, prevalence ratio (95% confidence interval [CI]): 2.14 [1.54, 2.98], and those whose mother was abused, prevalence ratio (95% CI): 2.25 [1.42, 3.57]. Always focusing on the need to protect women who report abuse, it is necessary to promote the availability of and access to legal resources especially among women who use them less: women who do not have children and women who do not have previous family exposure to violence.

Health-Sector Responses to Intimate Partner Violence Fitting the Response Into the Biomedical Health System or Adapting the System to Meet the Response?

This study aims to analyze how middle-level health systems’ managers understand the integration of a health care response to intimate partner violence (IPV) within the Spanish health system. Data were obtained through 26 individual interviews with professionals in charge of coordinating the health care response to IPV within the 17 regional health systems in Spain. The transcripts were analyzed following grounded theory in accordance with the constructivist approach described by Charmaz. Three categories emerged, showing the efforts and challenges to integrate a health care response to IPV within the Spanish health system: “IPV is a complex issue that generates activism and/or resistance,” “The mandate to integrate a health sector response to IPV: a priority not always prioritized,” and “The Spanish health system: respectful with professionals’ autonomy and firmly biomedical.” The core category, “Developing diverse responses to IPV integration,” crosscut the three categories and encompassed the range of different responses that emerge when a strong mandate to integrate a health care response to IPV is enacted. Such responses ranged from refraining to deal with the issue to offering a women-centered response. Attempting to integrate a response to nonbiomedical health problems as IPV into health systems that remain strongly biomedicalized is challenging and strongly dependent both on the motivation of professionals and on organizational factors. Implementing and sustaining changes in the structure and culture of the health care system are needed if a health care response to IPV that fulfills the World Health Organization guidelines is to be ensured.

Luis Muñoz Rivera : discurso /

Mode of access: Internet.

Proyecto para la construcción de ferro-carriles presentado al Señor ministro de fomento é instrucción pública, Dr. Andrés S. Muñoz,

Includes laws of October 1900 and December 1901 appropriating national funds to railway construction and "Ferro-carril de Guaqui á La Paz, extractos de la memoria presentada por el ministro de fomento é instrucción pública ... ante el Congreso ordinario de 1903".

Lady in waiting, an intimate journal of a labor of love,

Mode of access: Internet.

A treatise on divine union, designed to point out some of the intimate relations between God and man in the higher forms of religious experience.

5th ed.

A generation of progress in our public schools, 1881-1912; an intimate history of the Public education association of Philadelphia since its origin as a volunteer organization of citizens interested in the welfare of our public schools...

Mode of access: Internet.

Napoleon the First; an intimate biography,

Bibliography: p. 381-382.

All about New York: an intimate guide,

Maps on lining papers.

"Let's go!" 10 years' retrospect of the World War; historical official statistics, copies of documents and intimate anecdotes pertaining to the 1 Division, United States Army, from June 14th, 1917, to November 11th, 1918,

Lettered on cover of this copy: Nelson M. Holderman, M.H., Captain U.S. Army, retired.

Catalogue of important letters, manuscripts and books by or relating to Walt Whitman, the property of his intimate friend, biographer and literary executor, the late Richard Maurice Bucke of London, Ontario (sold by order of H. L. Bucke, esq.) which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby & co. ... the 13th of May, 1935.

117 lots.

Religio medici : together with a letter to a friend on the death of his intimate friend and christian morals /

Mode of access: Internet.

My vagabondage : being the intimate autobiography of a nature's nomad /

Mode of access: Internet.

Intimate victims : a study of violence among friends and relatives.

"Written by Harold R. Lentzner and Marshall M. DeBerry."