Psychological Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence Review

• Methods of Abuse
• What Is Psychological Abuse
• Physical Effects of Psychological Abuse
• Mental Health Effects of Psychological Abuse
• Patient Care and Referral Support Protocols

You are already seeing these patients: people living with psychological abuse and intimate partner violence, and the children growing up in those homes.

· They come to the emergency department, cardiology, gynecology, endocrinology, neurology, gastroenterology, rheumatology, pediatrics, and family medicine.

· They present with hypertension, migraine, chronic pain, irritable bowel, insomnia, fatigue, autoimmune flares, and anxiety or depression that does not respond to treatment.

· Their children present with attention, learning, and behavioral problems that have no clear cause.

· Psychological abuse is the most common form of intimate partner violence. One in two Americans report experiencing it in their lifetime, and with no injury to point to it rarely appears in a chart.

· The emergency department is the largest point of entry, yet 77 percent of intimate partner violence victims treated there were never identified as abuse victims, and 71 percent of their visits were for medical complaints rather than injuries.

· Emergency nurses, physicians, and frontline care teams are the professionals best positioned to recognize it, and most were never taught to see it.

· The Joint Commission’s 2026 National Performance Goals (NPG.07.03.01) require hospitals to educate staff to recognize the signs of possible abuse and their role in follow-up. This series meets that requirement.

This training series gives you the clinical foundation to recognize psychological abuse and intimate partner violence in your patients and their children, understand its physical, mental, and developmental effects, and identify and refer in a way that improves outcomes and strengthens the value of care.