Domestic abuse education in UK GP training schemes: cross-sectional study

Domestic abuse (DA) is a violation of human rights that damages physical and mental health. Healthcare services is the most common agency a woman experiencing DA may present to. DA is part of the GP postgraduate training curriculum in the UK, but we do not know how this is being implemented in registrar training.

To investigate the implementation of domestic abuse education in GP training schools across the UK.

Cross-sectional survey of UK postgraduate GP training groups.

Digital surveys were emailed to all UK postgraduate GP training groups. The survey contained quantitative and free-text questions about descriptive features of education provided and self-reported perceptions. The survey was sampled by programme directors (PDs) and trainees. Data was collected and analysed descriptively.

Seventy of the 115 (52%) GP postgraduate training groups responded. 44.2% of the groups did not offer DA education. If available, DA education sessions had different lengths of teaching, facilitators, content and methods. When asked if training was adequate, 47.4% of trainees disagreed and 36.8% strongly disagreed. Throughout the questions, PDs ranked the quality of education higher than trainees. PD's reasons for not providing DA education included lack of time and resources, but also cultural perceptions of DA being a taboo subject and not clinical.

Our survey shows that the provision of DA education in UK postgraduate GP training is absent in almost half the programmes and varies in length, content and quality, with a high proportion of respondents rating it inadequate.