Search Results
Intimate partner violence is a global problem experienced by all population groups, irrespective of socio-economic, religious and cultural background, and including both women and men. This systematic narrative review synthesises empirical research to draw conclusions on facilitators of, and barriers to, accessing help for victims of intimate partner violence. A search in Scopus, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Medline and PsycInfo conducted in October 2021 identified 864 articles that were independently reviewed to yield 47 relevant studies published between 2011 and 2021 in peer-reviewed journals. The included studies were synthesised using the following headings: (1) personal aspects; (2) family and friends; (3) community factors; (4) referral channels; (5) financial aspects; and (6) service issues. The severity of injury seemed to be a key factor in deciding to seek help. Family and friends were helpful to victims who were looking for support with their relationship and as a support on their journey towards services. A third key finding was that health and care systems are important referral channels for intimate partner violence services. As supports in intimate partner violence develop, consideration is required not only of the trauma of the victim but also how to communicate and facilitate access to help.
Background:
There is growing interest in and recognition of the need to use scientific evidence to inform policymaking. However, many of the existing studies on the use of research evidence (URE) have been largely qualitative, and the majority of existing quantitative measures are underdeveloped or were tested in regional or context-dependent settings. We are unaware of any quantitative measures of URE with national policymakers in the US.
Aims and objectives:
Explore how to measure URE quantitatively by validating a measure of congressional staff’s attitudes and behaviors regarding URE, the Legislative Use of Research Survey (LURS), and by discussing the lessons learned through administering the survey.
Methods:
A 68-item survey was administered to 80 congressional staff to measure their reported research use, value of research, interactions with researchers, general information sources, and research information sources. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on each of these five scales. We then trimmed the number of items, based on a combination of poor factor loadings and theoretical rationale, and ran the analyses on the trimmed subscales.
Findings:
We substantially improved our model fits for each scale over the original models and all items had acceptable factor loadings with our trimmed 35-item survey. We also describe the unique set of challenges and lessons learned from surveying congressional staff.
Discussion and conclusions:
This work contributes to the transdisciplinary field of URE by offering a tool for studying the mechanisms that can bridge research and policy and shedding light into best practices for measuring URE with national policymakers in the US.
