The Civil Legal Needs of Patients Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence in the Veterans Health Administration

Little is known about the civil legal needs (CLNs) of those experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). In this convergent mixed-methods, cross-sectional study, we used quantitative and qualitative data from a national online survey linked to Veteran Affairs health records to describe and compare the CLNs of patients who have screened IPV-positive versus IPV-negative. Using chi-square tests, we found that those who screened positive were significantly more likely to have at least one CLN (70.9% vs. 53.7%, p<.01 for all) and to have three or more CLNs (29.1% vs. 11.9%) than those who screened negative. IPV-positive patients were also significantly more likely to have CLNs related to housing (23.6% vs. 8.9%), family (23.6% vs. 8.6%), protection orders (14.6% vs. 1.3%), and military discharge status (14.6% vs. 5.1%) than IPV-negative patients. These findings underscore the importance of raising provider awareness of the breadth of patient-survivors' CLNs and staffing medical-legal partnerships with legal professionals qualified to address a range of legal services.