Responding to family violence across the lifespan: What is the St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne data telling us?
Melinda Collins1, Marianne Crowe1, Lisa Braddy1 1St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia
Abstract
The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence recognised the pivotal role hospitals have in the early identification and response to family violence. Led by the Social Work Department (SWD), St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne (SVHM) is committed to a data-driven approach to inform the organisational response to family violence across the lifespan.
This study, undertaken using a clinical data mining methodology, describes the findings of four years of data collection on family violence presentations at SVHM and the impact of using this data in practice. A total of n=1757 family violence notifications were audited. Eighty-four percent of patients experiencing family violence were female. Physical (67% cases) and psychological (63% cases) were the most identified forms of abuse. Two in three patients were experiencing multiple types of abuse. Older patients were more likely to be experiencing financial abuse (46% cases), to be living with the perpetrator (67% of cases), to be born outside Australia (56% of cases) and require an interpreter (34% cases). Intimate partner violence (77% of cases) was most common in the younger cohort and adult children were most likely to be perpetrating harm (59% cases) towards older patients. In 22% of cases, the SVHM patient was the person using violence.
Adopting this data-driven, evidence-based approach has given the SWD detailed insight into the presenting issues in family violence cases at SVHM. Understanding the issues specific to our patient cohort has allowed SVHM to develop policies, practices, services, training and research to better identify and manage family violence risk which ultimately keeps our patients safer.
Biography
Melinda Collins (she/her) has twenty-five years’ experience as a health social worker. Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts/Social Work in 1998, Melinda went on to obtain her Advanced Masters in Social Work (Health) in 2005. Melinda has worked in all areas across the continuum of hospital and community care. It is this experience that has led to her passion and commitment to clinician led, practice-based research. Melinda is currently the Research, Quality and Data Lead within the Social Work Department at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne.