Emergency Nurses' Barriers to Intervention of Domestic Violence in Turkey: A Qualitative Study

Domestic violence is a chronic healthcare problem affecting women from all groups. Nurses play a key role in determining and intervening in domestic violence due to their close relationship with the patients and because they belong to an occupational group that is mostly composed of females. Studies are required on the healthcare needs of battered women and to guide nurses regarding nursing care for these patients in Turkey. This study was a qualitative study where the in-depth interview method was used. Factors that prevent the services provided by nurses to women who have been subjects of domestic violence were investigated. We used the maximum variety sampling method so that we could ensure maximum variety of the individuals to access a larger amount of data in this study. A total of 30 nurses who had worked in emergency departments of hospitals for at least 1 year made up the study sample. We found that factors that prevented the intervention of emergency nurses in domestic violence were: They did not feel adequate to intervene due to their lack of knowledge on domestic violence, they felt that caring for the women subjected to domestic violence was the duty of the psychiatrist or the social worker and not the nurse, they worked in a very busy environment and did not have enough time to intervene in domestic violence, they were unable to be left alone with the women even if they wanted to intervene as there was no suitable environment and they were therefore afraid that the woman's relatives could hurt them or the woman, they felt that they would be intervening in the family if they intervened in domestic violence, they felt that domestic violence was a problem without a solution and that the nurse could do nothing to solve it.