Curricular Principles for Health Professions Education About Family Violence

The curricular principles presented here arose from a national conference of experts in dealing with family violence from medicine, nursing, and dentistry. The conference, held in March 1994 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The conference's work was based upon the premise that an integrated approach to health-professional education in family violence would be more effective than single approaches. The group developed a set of principles for identification of specific goals in knowledge, skills and practices. With those in mind, three levels of education were identified: knowledge, skills, and practices that should be taught to all health professionals (called "Family Violence 101"); advanced levels for primary care practitioners for comprehensive, longitudinal care; and knowledge, skills, and attitudes for specialty practitioners for specific, directed, intensive interventions appropriate to the specialties (called "Family Violence 201"); and additional education and training for those practitioners who wish to be consultants, investigators, and teachers of intervention in cases of family violence (called "Family Violence 301"). These recommendations are presented in the hope that health-professional schools and societies will implement them, thereby improving the health professions responses to this epidemic.