Self-perceived competence and willingness to ask about intimate partner violence among Swedish social workers

In this article we explore the extent to which Swedish social workers encounter IPV, as well as their readiness to handle these cases. The study draws from data gathered in an online survey answered by 787 caseworkers within the personal social services, exploring the rate of asking clients about intimate partner violence, access to IPV training, level of self-rated competence, and amount and frequency of IPV-cases in the caseload. Our findings do on the one hand confirm that IPV is a widespread problem that a large proportion of social workers come across on a regular basis, and on the other show that substantial parts of Swedish social workers consider themselves to be rather ill-equipped at handling cases of IPV. Results from multiple regression analyses show that training, high self-perceived competence and administrative procedures each tend to increase the likeliness of social workers regularly asking clients about IPV. Social service organisations striving to increase their ability to detect and support victims of IPV are thus likely to benefit by raising the level of staff competence as well as implementing administrative procedures throughout the organisation.