USPSTF Recommends Domestic Abuse Screening for Certain Women, Not for Elderly, Others

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that clinicians screen women of childbearing age for intimate partner violence, such as domestic violence, and provide or refer women who screen positive to intervention services, according to a USPSTF recommendation statement published in the March 19, 2013, issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. To update its 2004 recommendation statement on screening for family and intimate partner violence, USPSTF commissioned a systematic review of the evidence supporting screening women for intimate partner violence and elderly and other vulnerable adults for abuse and neglect. The task force determined that screening and interventions for intimate partner violence in women of childbearing age are associated with moderate health improvements through the reduction of exposure to abuse, as well as physical and mental harms and mortality.