Utilizing complexity theory to explore sustainable responses to intimate partner violence in health care

Implementing effective and sustainable health care responses to intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex public health problem internationally. Increasingly scholars are recognizing that research methods which explore health-system responses to IPV obscure the complexity of the problem. This paper discusses the use of complexity theory for researching sustainable responses to IPV within New Zealand primary health care. We reconceptualize IPV responses as complex adaptive systems and propose a complexity-friendly methodology to explore interactions within and between the problem (IPV), intervention (IPV response), and the setting (health care).