Dr. Ghayda Hassan will describe the key points of the Intimate partner violence review of the Canadian Collaboration for Immigrant and Refugee Health Evidence-based clinical guidelines.
Recently-settled immigrant women appear to have lower odds of intimate partner violence than longer term immigrants and Canadian-born women.
Linguistic barriers, financial dependency, lack of knowledge of laws and health services, fear of losing custody of children, and threats to immigration status of sponsorship agreements due to police involvement or criminal proceedings, may constitute significant barriers to disclosure and adherence to interventions among immigrant and refugee women.
Practitioners should refer women who have spent at least one night in a shelter to a structured program of patient-centered (advocacy) support services to decrease rate of abuse.