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“You just want to feel safe when you go to a healthcare professional:” Intimate partner violence and patient safety

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  • Maras, Shelly A.

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, researchers and policymakers in the United States have addressed the concept of patient safety in healthcare systems. Traditionally, scholars have conceptualized patient safety as health care that is free from medical error and harm. However, sociologists have called for a more complex understanding of patient safety that includes relational aspects of safety. Although marginalized groups face unique threats to safety, intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors have been largely overlooked within the literature on patient safety. This study addresses that gap. Using the case of IPV, I find that survivors construct healthcare spaces as ideologically safe, but their experiences do not reflect this. Survivors' narratives reveal that patient safety is complex, multi-faceted, and relational. I argue that experiences of safety, or lack thereof, are situated within larger systems of organizational power, relational power hierarchies, and systems of inequalities. These findings have implications when considering how to improve IPV survivors’ safety in healthcare settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Maras, Shelly A., 2023. "“You just want to feel safe when you go to a healthcare professional:” Intimate partner violence and patient safety," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:331:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623004239
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116066
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Waring, Justin J., 2009. "Constructing and re-constructing narratives of patient safety," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 1722-1731, December.
    2. Doherty, Carole & Saunders, Mark N.K., 2013. "Elective surgical patients' narratives of hospitalization: The co-construction of safety," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 29-36.
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