Combatting Intimate Partner Violence: Representations of Social and Healthcare Personnel Working with Gender-Based Violence Interventions

Gender-based violence is a worldwide phenomenon that is a human rights violation and a public health problem. Despite the increasing focus on perpetrators and victims of gender-based violence, the scientific literature is still lacking in terms of studying the representations of practitioners involved in interventions to combat and prevent the phenomenon. For this reason, we will report the results of a study published in 2020 that explores how practitioners' representations influence how gender-based violence is managed and countered through an ecological approach to the phenomenon, as well as highlighting the role of services at the organizational level and their cultural and symbolic substrates. A total of 35 health and social workers were interviewed, and the textual materials were analyzed by thematic analysis. The evidence suggests that services countering gender-based violence use different representations and management approaches. This finding can be a limitation but become an asset in creating heterogeneous but not fragmented networks.