TY - JOUR PY - 2002// TI - Measuring the Quality of Hospital‐based Domestic Violence Programs JO - Academic emergency medicine A1 - Coben, Jeffrey H. SP - 1176 EP - 1183 VL - 9 IS - 11 N2 - Objective: To obtain consensus among a panel of experts on performance measures useful for evaluating the quality of hospital-based domestic violence (DV) programs. Methods: The Delphi process of consensus development was used with a panel of 18 experts including DV researchers, program planners, and advocates. Three rounds were conducted over a period of six months, with each round involving the completion of a written questionnaire. Panelists were instructed to concentrate on structure and process measures of DV program performance. Health outcome measures were not considered. During each round, panelists rated (scale of 1-5) their level of agreement with each measure, in terms of the measure's usefulness for evaluating hospital-based DV programs. Data were entered into SPSS on a personal computer and frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, and variance were computed for each measure. Consensus development was defined as a reduction in the item-specific variance from one round to the next. Results: A total of 37 performance measures were agreed upon. These measures fell within nine different domains of DV program activities, including: Policies and Procedures, Hospital Physical Environment, Hospital Cultural Environment, Training of Providers, Screening and Safety Assessment, Documentation, Intervention Services, Evaluation Activities, and Collaboration. Conclusions: A number of measures have been identified as useful for evaluating hospital-based DV programs. Use of these measures should assist researchers, program planners, and administrators in assessing the quality of hospital-based DV programs.

LA - SN - 1069-6563 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1197/aemj.9.11.1176 ID - ref1 ER -