Violence Research: An Overview

This article discusses the problem of violence in America and presents an overview of pertinent research studies. It considers data sources on violence and the categorization of injuries. The article next focuses on the specific problems of family violence: child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. The second part of the article considers the nursing discipline’s specific contribution to violence research by reviewing nursing studies on abuse during pregnancy, female partner abuse, elder abuse, and child abuse. Nursing research, which is grounded in the clinical concerns of the discipline, is presented as having an advocacy orientation that avoids the victim blaming and emphasis on pathology often characteristic of other disciplines’ research. The paper discusses how nurses can participate in prevention approaches to reduce violence-related injuries, and it concludes by offering policy recommendations for nursing organizations.