The role of interprofessional collaboration for intimate partner violence in psychiatric care: A research and development project

Abstract

In Finland, policy requirements have demanded providers to work collaboratively together with regard to intimate partner violence (IPV). This research and development project seeks to identify efficient tools for stopping IPV. The project included staff training to recognize and respond to IPV, the development of a research-based guideline for use in the care situations of victims and perpetrators and the integration of the guideline into practices and staff development. Networking was developed during the project through interprofessional and multiagency collaboration, whereas appraisal information was collected at different stages of the process. This paper focuses on the issues of interprofessional collaboration, and uses psychiatric care as an example. There is some evidence that interprofessional interventions reduce the cost of patient care and improve the quality of IPV services. That is why it is important to discuss these issues and solve possible problems arising in interprofessional patient care.

Keywords::

• Health services research
• interprofessional care
• interprofessional collaboration

Acknowledgements

The authors thank translator Monica Sonck and language consultant Mark Phillips at the National Institute for health and Welfare for revising the language of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

This research and development project was funded by National Institute of Health and Welfare, Finland (140/THL 2011, 2012). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.