Abstract

In “Intimate Partner Violence Education for Medical Students: Toward a Comprehensive Curriculum Revision,” the authors describe a shortage of intimate partner violence (IPV) content in a medical school curriculum, measure personal IPV experience among medical students, and demonstrate that perceived or actual IPV knowledge may be related to IPV content exposure, but report that it does not appear to be significantly influenced by personal or family IPV experience, which was surprisingly prevalent (28.7%) in medical students.¹ The importance of IPV is hard to refute. Twenty-five percent of all women and 14.5% of all men have experienced a lifetime episode,² and rates of IPV can be even higher among women who are young, single, poorly educated, and victims of childhood abuse. A 2011 study showed that the leading cause of pregnancy-related mortality was not what one might consider the “traditional” obstetrical complications, such as hemorrhage, infection, or eclampsia. Rather, the number-one cause of maternal mortality was pregnancy-associated homicide, followed by pregnancy-associated suicide.³Furthermore, 54.3% of pregnancy-associated suicides involved IPV that appeared to contribute to the suicide, and 45.3% of pregnancy-associated homicides were associated with IPV.³ Being a victim of IPV also increases the long-term risk of adverse health outcomes, including asthma, musculoskeletal disease, complications of pregnancy and childbirth, sexually transmitted diseases (including human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome), substance abuse, anxiety, and depression.⁴ IPV also is associated with higher health care utilization rates, especially for mental health services.⁵ Sadly, children who are exposed to IPV are much more likely to be both victims and perpetrators of IPV as adults,⁶ thus helping to perpetuate a cycle of abuse and victimization.