Family Violence and Nursing Practice: A Global Perspective

The new edition of this textbook provides uniquely comprehensive and nursing-focused coverage of family violence from an international perspective. Family violence is a global health crisis that impacts millions of people worldwide. As the world’s largest and most trusted health profession, nurses play a unique and critical role in preventing, identifying, and mitigating family violence.

This textbook provides foundational knowledge on all aspects of family violence, presented in four main sections: What is Family Violence?; Family Violence and Nursing Practice; Family Violence across the Lifespan; Diverse Populations at Risk.

This resource is specific (but not exclusive) to nursing practice and outlines the importance of nurses in the prevention of family violence across the life course. It offers both practicing nurses and students a clear view of the essential theories, interventions, and issues surrounding nursing’s role in addressing family violence – presenting an approach that empowers nurses to contribute to the prevention of this global health problem. Specific emphasis is placed on the co-production of research and practice improvements with survivors of family violence and the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration.

This new edition has a global perspective, with editors and family violence experts contributing from a range of countries and clinical settings like maternity, public and community health, forensic and paediatric nursing.

This easy-to-comprehend, yet detailed, overview of how nursing practice can reduce family violence and its associated health and social harms takes an intersectional and life course approach: from nursing care of the pregnant woman to the identification and management of elder abuse. An in-depth attention is brought to diverse populations at risk, including historically marginalized populations, sexual and gender minority communities, rural and remote populations, First Nations/Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, and migrant and refugee communities.

Jessica Williams (PhD, MPH, PHNA-BC, FAAN) is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Nursing. She is a board-certified advanced public health nurse with clinical training in both hospital and community settings. Her research focuses on improving the role of the healthcare system in addressing syndemic health outcomes (e.g., chronic pain, HIV, opioid misuse) of interpersonal and gender-based violence and is facilitated through the application of community engagement methodology and dissemination and implementation science. Her research demonstrates how trauma impacts patient-provider communication and access to effective health services. This work highlights the unique difficulties survivors face managing chronic health conditions and how internal resources affect these challenges both positively and negatively. Her most recent research focuses on understanding the contribution of interpersonal violence to chronic pain opioid misuse and factors that promote resiliency among survivors. Dr. Williams teaches courses in qualitative research methodology and evidence-based practice. She also provides training for health providers focused on screening and responding to interpersonal and gender-based violence within healthcare settings based on current evidence-based practice guidelines. She earned her PhD in 2008 from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.

Nicholas Metheny is a tenure-track Assistant Professor and nurse-scientist whose work focuses on understanding and mitigating the harms of intimate partner violence (IPV) in women and sexual and gender minorities in the United States and South Africa. He obtained a PhD in Nursing Science from the University of Michigan in 2019 before completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Population Health at the St. Michael’s Hospital-University of Toronto funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He also holds a Master of Public Health in Global Health Policy from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Arts from The College of William and Mary. He currently serves as Vice President of the Nursing Network on Violence against Women International.

Leesa Hooker is a rural nurse/midwife and Professorial Research Fellow at the Violet Vines Marshman Centre for Rural Health Research and the Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University, Melbourne. She is the Director of the Reducing Gender-Based Violence research group (ReGEN) at La Trobe University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Professor Hooker leads programs of research on Preventing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence and Child, Family and Community Health. She teaches family violence prevention in nursing and midwifery at undergraduate and postgraduate level. With a PhD on Strengthening Community Health Systems to Respond to Family Violence, she has established research expertise in the epidemiology of sexual and gender-based violence, women’s sexual and reproductive health and parenting. Her research includes intervention trials, evaluation and observation studies and systematic reviews with a focus on improving maternal and child health outcomes.

Jacquelyn Campbell is a national leader in research and advocacy in the field of domestic and intimate partner violence (IPV). She has authored or co-authored more than 230 publications and seven books on violence and health outcomes. Her studies paved the way for a growing body of interdisciplinary investigations by researchers in the disciplines of nursing, medicine, and public health. Her expertise is frequently sought by national and international policy makers in exploring IPV and its health effects on families and communities. As a nurse educator and mentor, Dr. Campbell leads by example in inspiring new generations of nurse researchers. Her BSN, MSN, and PhD are from Duke University, Wright State University, and the University of Rochester. She teaches an undergraduate and MSN elective in Family Violence as well as in the PhD program and is the PI of an NIH-funded (T32) fellowship that provides funding for pre- and postdoctoral fellows in violence research. Elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2000, Dr. Campbell also was the Institute of Medicine/American Academy of Nursing/American Nurses' Foundation Senior Scholar in Residence and was founding co-chair of the IOM Forum on the Prevention of Global Violence. Other honors include the Pathfinder Distinguished Researcher by the Friends of the National Institute of Health National Institute for Nursing Research, Outstanding Alumna and Distinguished Contributions to Nursing Science Awards, Duke University School of Nursing, the American Society of Criminology Vollmer Award, and being named one of the inaugural 17 Gilman Scholars at Johns Hopkins University. She is on the Board of Directors for Futures Without Violence, is an active member of the Johns Hopkins Women’s Health Research Group, and has served on the boards of the House of Ruth Battered Women's Shelter and four other shelters. She was a member of the congressionally appointed U.S. Department of Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence.