Family Physician's Knowledge of and Attitude towards Spouse Abuse in Korea

Background: The primary physician may be the first or the only professional who may come in contact with victims of spouse abuse. But little is known about family physician's knowledge of and attitude towards spouse abuse in Korea. Therefore, this study was conducted. Methods: We selected 191 doctors from the participants of the 2003 annual meeting of the Korean Academy of Family Medicine (KAFM). We distributed a 5 paged questionnaire them to fillout and analyzed 125 cases among them. The questionnaire included social demographic characteristics, individual knowledge of and attitudes toword spouse abuse, individual practice experience, education and training experience, and others. Results: We found a significant relationship between doctor's knowledge of spouse abuse and intervention after coming in contact with the victim. Also, this study showed that 31.8% of doctors intervened and traced the spouse abuse cases actively after physical treatment of victims, but none of the cases were reported to the police. Among the total 64.7% of the doctors explained that they did not want to intervene because they were afraid of getting involved in a legal situation. Some of the doctors who had prior educational experience concerning spouse abuse showed very significant high rate of actual intervention (P=0.0112). Conclusion: The more educational experience on spouse violence the doctors had, the more active intervention they showed. Therefore, we need to intensify the practical educational program along with the training medical program targeting medical practitioners. Of course we need to reguest sacrifice from doctors based on moral principles, but we also need systemic aid and reform to legal system to minimize burden to doctors.