Physicians' perceptions of and approaches to woman abuse. Does certification in family medicine make a difference?

To discover whether family physicians who go through residency training and The College of Family Physicians of Canada's (CFPC) certification process are more responsive than other physicians to woman abuse, whether they perceive and approach such abuse more appropriately, and whether they seek out more education on the subject.

A national survey using a pretested 43-item mailed questionnaire to examine perceptions of and approaches to detection and management of woman abuse.

Canadian family and general practice.

A cross-sectional sample of 1574 family physicians and general practitioners, of whom 963 (61%) volunteers responded.

Demographic variables, perceptions of abuse, methods of diagnosing and managing woman abuse.

Most respondents agreed they could not diagnose and treat woman abuse effectively, regardless of certification status. They indicated they were detecting only 33% of cases. Certificants of CFPC, in particular residency-trained certificants, were more likely to think that they should be diagnosing woman abuse than noncertificants; they were also more likely to help victims by referring them to specialists and other agencies. Certificants were also more likely to think they should be treating these patients themselves, and that they were not adequately trained to do so. Although most respondents thought they needed more education, certificants were more likely to know of relevant courses, to have attended such courses, and to have read books or articles on the topic.

Being a certificant is not associated with perceived skills in diagnosing and treating woman abuse, but is associated with an increased awareness of the problem. Certificants know that education on woman abuse is available.