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ELECTRONIC ARTICLE:
Gregory W. Parkinson, Richard C. Adams, and Frank G. Emerling
Maternal Domestic Violence Screening in an Office-Based Pediatric Practice
Pediatrics 2001; 108: e43 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]
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P3Rs published:

[Read P3R] violence?
Michael McGuirk   (10 September 2001)

violence? 10 September 2001
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Michael McGuirk,
Research Technical Staff
MIT

Send letter to journal:
Re: violence?

mm{at}space.mit.edu Michael McGuirk

This article successfully establishes the ease of administering a short screening questionaire in a pediatric office.

The article claims some validity in determining the incidence of domestic violence based on a large sample size and the availability of anonymous reporting. It gives reasons why the sample may underestimate the true incidence of violence in the population. But it ignores the factors which may cause it to overrepresent it.

The question used to detect the incidence of "domestic violence" is "In your current relationship, have you ever been harmed or felt afraid of your partner?"

The article correctly reports that other workers in the domestic violence field have used the same definition and have obtained similar incidence rates. However, the conclusion that the survey accurately represents the incidence of domestic violence is not justified.

The survey question fails to distinguish between women who have actually been harmed and those who may suffer from an anxiety disorder, but have neither been harmed nor even threatened.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, "Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in America: more than 19 million are affected by these debilitating illnesses each year." (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/anxiety/anxiety/idx_fax.htm)

Since at any given time about 7% of the population suffers from anxiety disorder, it is very surprising that only 2.5% of women report that they have felt afraid of their current spouse! But the practice of lumping together people who are harmed with people who have anxiety is sure to inflate the numbers.