Violence screening and viral load suppression among HIV-positive women of color

Recent research suggests intimate partner violence (IPV) is commonly experienced by many people living with HIV/AIDS, which can complicate their care. We introduce a novel approach to screening for history of violence among 102 women of color living with HIV and receiving care at an outpatient public health clinic. Using a composite measure composed of data from a variety of screening tools, we were able to determine that 70.6% of the women had a history of violence using the composite measure, and that 43% screened positive using multiple screening tools. Although overall viral load suppression rate was high at 81.4%, women with a history of violence were less likely to be virally suppressed when compared to those without such a history (76.4% versus 93.3%, p<0.05). Our findings suggest using a variety of screening questions at entry and at follow-up care appointments may be key to identifying and supporting women survivors who may not disclose violence when first asked. Future research should foster further development, analysis, and use of a variety of screening tools such as those used in this study.