Victims of Domestic Violence: A Proposal for a Community Diagnosis Based on One of Two Domains of NANDA Taxonomy II

Abstract

PURPOSE To explore and identify diagnostic components to amplify NANDA nursing diagnoses by modifying the root violence. Whereas violence is nondebatable as a diagnostic concept in nursing, other alternatives have not been identified in the two existing diagnoses. METHODS Using the case study method, this qualitative study sought to identify commonalties in a population of women who were “donnas da casa” (homemakers) in a small rural community of approximately 100 families, typical of the Brazilian northeast. The sample of 7 women was identified through a larger study that had been based on health needs of the community. Data were obtained through observation during a home visit and a semistructured interview based on NANDA Taxonomy II. Observations were focused on hygiene, manner of dress, home environment, and physical and emotional state. Data were analyzed by content and clustered into major categories. From these a profile of the women and another of the partners emerged. FINDINGS Subjects ranged in age from 33 to 43 years, and number of children between 3 and 7. One of the 7 women was literate; 5 were underweight; all were slovenly attired. They appeared sad and older than their age. The majority seemed relieved to unburden themselves to the interviewers as they went through a gamut of emotions such as sadness, anguish, and irritability expressed through crying, restlessness, changes in body language, and tone of voice. The shortage of beds was supplemented by hammocks and mats or cardboard. The women spoke of being confined to their home and of male partners who drank on weekends, thus leaving them with little money for necessities of life. There were accounts of beatings when the partner returned home after drinking, overt nonacceptance of children from previous marriages, and general destruction of the family environment. New children were regarded as just another mouth to feed. DISCUSSION The profiles pointed to the necessity of identifying a new nursing diagnosis that would be linked, only tangentially, by the root violence to the two diagnoses in NANDA Taxonomies I and II. This insight led us to consider that a new method of listing NANDA diagnoses, by root only, is imperative in the evolution of Taxonomy II. Proposed descriptors, Victims of (Axis 3) and Domestic (Axis 6) would be identified by Axes, thereby facilitating the process of classifying in the Domains and Classes. The two existing NANDA diagnoses, risk for other‐directed violence and risk for self‐directed violence, are proposed for classification in Class 3, Violence, in Domain 11 of Taxonomy II. Safety/Protection could, by virtue of their modification power, find anchor in another domain such as Domain 6, Self‐Perception. CONCLUSIONS Although Safety/Protection seems the most logical domain for classification by root, the axes, dimensions of human responses, could pull the diagnosis in another direction, thereby dictating other nursing interventions and nursing outcomes