Violência contra a mulher na rede de atenção básica: o que os enfermeiros sabem sobre o problema?

OBJECTIVES: to outline what nurses from the District Basic Care Units of the municipality of Ribeirao Preto, in the Brazilian State of Sao Paulo, know about violence against women, especially that perpetrated by an intimate partner. METHODS: a quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive study was carried out with 51 nurses drawn from a larger study of 221 health workers. The data were collected using a questionnaire that asked about their knowledge regarding violence against women. RESULTS: the nurses correctly answered 76% to 90.2% of the questions on the definition of gender violence and 78% obtained high scores on questions relating to the epidemiology of violence. However, 70.6% showed no knowledge of the epidemiology of violence in prenatal services. 83.7% of the nurses showed good knowledge of how to deal with victims to get them to report the abuse and 52% showed a good knowledge of case management. CONCLUSIONS: nurses are well aware of what violence is and have knowledge about how to manage cases and the need to report abuse and refer women who are at risk. However, they are unaware of important epidemiological features of violence against women, which may pose an obstacle to their ability to attend women at risk, especially during prenatal care.