Gender, alcohol and intimate partner violence: how to respond in primary care?

This paper's aim is to provide an overview of how to respond to alcohol use/abuse and intimate partner violence for men and women attending primary care.

The paper describes the role of family practitioners in identifying patients in primary care who have dual problems of substance use and intimate partner violence.

Primary care is a potential site of early intervention using brief counselling techniques for male perpetrators and female victims of intimate partner violence who also have hazardous or harmful drinking.

Practitioners should be aware of the overlap between these two social public health problems and how to respond.

Practitioners often do not identify the hidden issue of intimate partner violence.