Résumé
Context of the study: domestic violence is a daily occurrence in France, that sadly remains a taboo to this day. Several studies show that domestic violence is a frequent occurrence, affecting all communities. Despite this frequency, general practitioners struggle to identify the victims of these abuses and lacks options when it comes to undertaking valid and reproducible questionnaires. The Woman Abuse Screening Tool (WAST) is the only tool that was validated for use in France, but its systematic implementation is deemed to be impractical by practitioners and as of yet, it is still underused and considered inefficient. That is why we have developed a new screening tool for domestic violence for general practitioners, starting with the weaknesses identified in other tools as well as suggestions from practitioners with some experience in screening woman abuse. Goal of the study: studying the efficiency of the new screening tool. Methodology: we have realized a multicenter observation study in France. The screening tool was offered anonymously and autonomously to adult patients reporting domestic violence at the UMJ of Nîmes’ hospital, or with an appointment for any other motive in several general practitioners’ office around the French regions Occitanie and PACA. The main goal was to study the relevance of this screening tool among these two sample groups. The secondary objective was to measure the time required to fill in the questionnaire. Results: 118 patients have taken in the study. 106 of them were women (89.8%) and 12 of the were men (10.2%). The questionnaire was positive for 43.6% of the general practitioners’ patients, and positive for 100% of the hospital’s patients. 66.2% of all patients had already spoken out to someone else regarding the abuse. In 94.9% of all cases, the questionnaire was filled in less than 3 minutes. The screening tool felt positive to 73.7% of all patients, though slightly lower for those who were victims of domestic abuse. Conclusion: our screening tool has a good relevance, and is accepted by a majority of patients, whether they are victims of domestic abuse or not, and can be filled in quickly. It constitutes an additional asset towards the systematic screening of domestic abuse. This tool could be implemented in common general practice, but would require a validation and comparison to the WAST, as well as additional feedback and sampling over time.