Domestic Violence In Australia: Trends And Nursing Interventions

HSH725 Research Literacy

Definition of Domestic Violence in Australia

In the context of the Australian Family Law Act, which was passed in the year 1975, domestic violence is defined as a dominating or violent behaviour exhibited by an individual on their intimate partners or generate a sense of fear in their immediate family members. Statistical evidences reveal that 1 out of 3 women and 1 out of 5 men in Australia have been acute victims of domestic violence by their intimate partners since their initial teenage phase at least once in their lifetime (Blatch et al.2015). This report will focus on the topic of domestic violence in Australia and evaluate the current trends with critical relevance to the references. The report will further analyse the research findings and offer recommendations in order to reduce the risks related to domestic violence in Australia.

The method incorporated while carrying out an extensive research on identifying relevant literatures associated with domestic violence and substance abuse included thoroughly surveying the Google-scholar database. The papers were segregated on the basis of inclusion and exclusion characteristics. The inclusion characteristics included the publication of the paper in English language, relevant papers of domestic violence and papers published within the tenure 2013 to 2017 while the exclusion characteristics included the publication of paper in other foreign languages such as Chinese or Spanish and comprising of irrelevant elements such as interventions practiced on animal models and publications before 2013.

Statistical figures also reveal that since the year 2015, about 65% of Australian women have been victims of FDV-associated homicide and that the crime rate of domestic violence is quite high in Australia (Spruin et al.2015). Domestic violence in Australia have been reported to be caused extensively due to substance abuse and is found to elicit disastrous effect in terms of mental and emotional trauma on the intimate partners or other family members present in the family (Wong et al.2014). The ill-effect of domestic violence on the children are multidimensional. It affects the overall personality development and at the same time also affects the academic performance of the children in school (Humphreys et al.2015). The diagnosis of the stress level is determined in correlation with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders as abbreviated as (DSM), fourth edition (Taft et al.2015). Mental trauma elicited through regular witnessing of the domestic violence is said to cause attention-deficit disorders, hyperactive disorders and anxiety disorders in children (Humphreys et al.2015). The effects generated on adult women include self-regulatory and relational dysfunction, communication disorder, anxiety disorder and impaired eating and sleeping disorders (Bair-Merritt et al.2014). Statistical data revealed that on an average about 80% of Australian women and 95% of Australian women were not vocal about their experience of domestic abuse due to hesitation and shyness (Ali et al.2013). According to a two-phased qualitative study conducted in Scotland, it was found that women are more hesitant in reporting domestic abuse (Bradbury et al.2014). The study was based on the interview responses of health professionals and focus groups of women who have been victims of acute domestic abuse. Results revealed that lack of awareness program triggered the sufferings caused by domestic violence (Bradbury et al.2014). Results also revealed that due to the lack of proper knowledge about the ill-effects of domestic violence, many women are unaware of the fact that it is a form of crime (Ali et al.2013). Nursing intervention in the form of engaging men who practice domestic violence into a mandatory group therapy program highlighting the need to incorporate a self-change yielded positive results (Zalmanowitz et al.2013). The group therapy made use of motivational interviewing and proceeded with the explanation of the expected responsibilities from men who are considered to the pillars of a family unit (Zalmanowitz et al.2013). After the program, the degree of change was accessed on the basis of the URICA-G and URICA-DV level. The study yielded positive change in terms of change of personality to minimise the tendency of aggression and violence in the participants (Zalmanowitz et al.2013). In order to assist and rehabilitate patients who are prone to substance-abuse such as opiate dependent patients, a study was conducted to examine whether counselling coupled with medication can help the patients recover faster. Results revealed that basic counselling coupled with medication of methadone helped in drastic reduction of substance abuse among the participants (Brown et al.2014). Family therapy intervention has also been reported to yield positive results with patients subjected to over use of addictive substances. Family therapy however has been used when the abuser can be identified with the initial symptoms. It makes use of the family members in the process of counselling. The family therapy intervention is aimed at improving the physical and the emotional aspects of the family (Cook et al.2015). It involves the family members in a way that they encourage the patient in participating in awareness programs a closely monitor the day to day activities as exhibited by the abuser and take note of it. Family therapy has been proposed to be extremely advantageous to treat problems related to drug abuse as it prevents the problem from spreading to the successive generations. Narrative therapy has been reported to be the best nursing intervention in order to provide relief to the victims of domestic violence (Ricks et al.2014). As suggested by literature analysis, narrative therapy focuses on recording the experiences of the victims. It encourages the victims to talk about their experiences on dealing with the problems of domestic abuse on a regular basis and tries to reflect on the experience as recorded in a counselling session. Narrative therapy can be efficiently administered on the abuser as well. It does not speculate the abuser as a problem rather tries to analyse the factors that has led to the development of aggression and the tendency of violence in the patient. On being able to identify the experience and causes that has led to the disastrous development of a destructive personality, it is much easier to develop interventions.

Current Trends of Domestic Violence in Australia

Therefore, on the basis of the evidences as revealed by the critical study conducted on the available literatures on domestic violence and substance abuse, it can be said that domestic violence is a serious issue in Australia. The nursing interventions are primarily based on administering counselling and rehabilitation of the patients who exploit addictive substances and engaging them in community based intervention programs. The use of family therapy, narrative therapy, community programs and awareness programs assisted with medication have found to yield positive results while dealing with patients who are prone to substance abuse practice domestic violence.

The best recommendations that can be listed in order to deal effectively with the problems of domestic violence in Australia would comprise of the following (Blatch et al.2016):

• Ensure to provide a supportive environment to the victims by thorough maintenance of weekly assessment of reported domestic violence in the concerned health setting
• Provide support by positioning safety cards in the patients washroom or dressing room who are in need of safety information but might not be able to disclose the problem because of family constraints
• Organise domestic violence programs within the community so as to get a larger proportion of the sufferers involved
• Creation of a 24 hour help cell that would involve trained nursing professionals to counsel the patients who need assistance with emotional or mental trauma manifested due to social violence
• Include one-day workshop on domestic violence and substance abuse in big or small corporate houses, schools and colleges to spread awareness about the ill-effects of domestic violence.

Conclusion:

The research paper deals with one of the primary factors that affects mental health in Australia to a large extent. The paper critically examines the factors that contribute to domestic violence in Australia and it has been found that the crimes related to domestic abuse is quite high in Australia. The research study reveals that the both women and men have been victims of domestic abuse at least once in their life time since the early teenage of 15 years old. Studies also reveal that children too have been victims of domestic violence and children who grow up witnessing domestic violence regularly are prone to become aggressive in future based on their bitter experience of silently witnessing one of their either parent being tortured brutally by the other. It should be noted that the sight of violence every day at home gives rise to accumulation of aggression that hugely affects their personality development process. The effect also leads to poor academic performances in case of children and poor professional output in case of the elderly. Nursing interventions include reaching out to the distressed victim and counselling of the patient who practices domestic violence. Interventions necessarily include placing the abusers into rehabilitation units and adopt measures to promote awareness about the ill effects of domestic violence within the community.

References:

Ali, P.A. and Naylor, P.B., 2013. Intimate partner violence: A narrative review of the feminist, social and ecological explanations for its causation. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18(6), pp.611-619.

Bair-Merritt, M.H., Lewis-O’Connor, A., Goel, S., Amato, P., Ismailji, T., Jelley, M., Lenahan, P. and Cronholm, P., 2014. Primary care–based interventions for intimate partner violence: A systematic review. American journal of preventive medicine, 46(2), pp.188-194.

Blatch, C., O’Sullivan, K., Delaney, J.J., van Doorn, G. and Sweller, T., 2016. Evaluation of an Australian domestic abuse program for offending males. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 8(1), pp.4-20.

Bradbury?Jones, C., Taylor, J., Kroll, T. and Duncan, F., 2014. Domestic abuse awareness and recognition among primary healthcare professionals and abused women: a qualitative investigation. Journal of clinical nursing, 23(21-22), pp.3057-3068.

Brown, J. and James, K., 2014. Therapeutic responses to domestic violence in Australia: A history of controversies. Australian and New Zealand Journal of family therapy, 35(2), pp.169-184.

Cook, A., Spinazzola, J., Ford, J., Lanktree, C., Blaustein, M., Cloitre, M., DeRosa, R., Hubbard, R., Kagan, R., Liautaud, J. and Mallah, K., 2017. Complex trauma in children and adolescents. Psychiatric annals, 35(5), pp.390-398.

Humphreys, C. and Bradbury?Jones, C., 2015. Domestic abuse and safeguarding children: Focus, response and intervention. Child abuse review, 24(4), pp.231-234.

Ricks, L., Kitchens, S., Goodrich, T. and Hancock, E., 2014. My story: The use of narrative therapy in individual and group counseling. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 9(1), pp.99-110.

Spruin, E., Alleyne, E. and Papadaki, I., 2015. Domestic abuse victims’ perceptions of abuse and support: a narrative study. Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, 1(1), pp.19-28.

Taft, A.J., Hooker, L., Humphreys, C., Hegarty, K., Walter, R., Adams, C., Agius, P. and Small, R., 2015. Maternal and child health nurse screening and care for mothers experiencing domestic violence (MOVE): a cluster randomised trial. BMC medicine, 13(1), p.150.

Wong, J. and Mellor, D., 2014. Intimate partner violence and women’s health and wellbeing: Impacts, risk factors and responses. Contemporary nurse, 46(2), pp.170-179.

Zalmanowitz, S.J., Babins-Wagner, R., Rodger, S., Corbett, B.A. and Leschied, A., 2013. The association of readiness to change and motivational interviewing with treatment outcomes in males involved in domestic violence group therapy. Journal of interpersonal violence, 28(5), pp.956-974.

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