High rate of domestic abuse cases being reported by women at clinics

One-in-six women attending orthopaedic fracture clinics have been victims of physical, emotional or sexual violence at the hands of a partner (intimate partner violence (IPV)) within the past year, and one-in-50 attend as a direct result of IPV, according to the largest multinational study of its kind to date, published online first in The Lancet. “The unexpectedly high rate of IPV in orthopaedics suggests that injury clinics are the ideal location for identification and support programmes for victims of severe abuse who may be at increased risk of further injury and homicide,” explained Shelia Sprague from McMaster University in Canada,…