BACKGROUND:
Domestic violence is an international public health concern. Violence can first occur or escalate in pregnancy, resulting in increased risks of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Routine enquiry by healthcare professionals is essential to identify women exposed to domestic violence in the perinatal period but research with maternity healthcare professionals has identified that they feel unprepared to screen and respond to disclosures.

OBJECTIVES:
To explore the domestic violence content taught in undergraduate curricula across midwifery, medical, public health nursing (PHN), and social work education programmes in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in Ireland.

METHODS:
Fourteen curricula were reviewed, midwifery (n=2), medicine (n=4), PHN (n=2) and social work (n=6), and data were analysed using the four main stages of manifest content analysis: decontextualization, recontextualization, categorisation and compilation. Ethical approval was not required for this review, and the authors declare no conflicts of interest.

RESULTS:
The analysis identified six categories: context, timing, teaching methods, facilitator, content and terminology. The time spent teaching domestic violence content ranged from 1 to 9 hours, and content was taught by various professionals from lecturers to external subject experts. The teaching methods varied across programmes and included lectures, tutorials and workshops. One of the social work curricula reviewed did not refer to domestic violence in the perinatal period and 12 curricula did not identify the role of other maternity healthcare professionals.

CONCLUSIONS:
This review identified considerable variations in the domestic violence content taught in these curricula. There is a lack of pregnancy and postnatal period specific content regarding domestic violence in the curricula reviewed. These gaps in knowledge across professions have implications for maternity healthcare professionals’ and their preparedness to screen for and respond to women’s disclosures.

KEY MESSAGE:
Domestic violence education must be tailored to address the learning requirements of undergraduate maternity healthcare professionals’ and the unique considerations of peripartum women. Poster session 3 (Group B)