Forensic Nursing

This text is designed to provide nurses with the appropriate skills to identify and deal with children, women and elderly patients who are victims of violence and/or physical abuse. Interviewing and documentation of evidence if physical violence is suspected is included in the discussion.

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This text is designed to provide nurses with the appropriate skills to identify and deal with children, women and elderly patients who are victims of violence and/or physical abuse. The work was written in response to the pending mandate that nursing programmes that receive federal funds under DMHIA educate students to recognize and treat victims of violence in our society and instruct nurses that they have a responsibility to recognize and therefore develop anti-violence strategies. Topics covered include: assessment; interviewing and documentation of evidence if physical violence is suspected; how to recognize patterns of abuse injuries; rules for collecting and preserving evidence; patterns of enquiry caused by a variety of weapons; techniques for investigating a crime or death scene; legal and ethical issues; and psychosocial approaches to providing nursing care in instances of rape and other types of abuse.