Effect of Screening for Partner Violence on Use of Health Services at 3-Year Follow-up of a Randomized Clinical Trial

The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends women of reproductive age be screened for partner violence.1 However, others, such as the World Health Organization2 and the Cochrane Collaborative,3 conclude there is insufficient evidence for this recommendation. Our randomized clinical trial allocated women seeking care in outpatient clinics to 1 of 3 study groups: computerized partner violence screening and provision of a local resource list, universal provision of a partner violence resource list without screening, or a no screen/no resource list control group. No differences were found in women’s quality of life, days lost from work or housework, use of health care and partner violence services, or the recurrence of partner violence after 1 year.4 We report women’s use of health services over 3 years, which we hypothesized would be lower in the intervention groups, as delayed effects of acting on the referral information could result from deteriorating health.