A total of 33 articles, evaluating 21 intimate partner violence screening tools, were included in the review. The number of studies reporting data on sensitivity and specificity, as well as the total number of study participants, was unclear. The most studied intimate partner violence screening tools were the Hurt, Insult, Threaten, and Scream (HITS) (five studies), the Woman Abuse Screening Tool/Woman Abuse Screening Tool-Short Form (WAST/WAST-SF) (six studies), the Partner Violence Screen (PVS) tool (six studies) and the Abuse Assessment Screen (AAS) (four studies). Of the 21 intimate partner violence screening tools assessed, 16 addressed physical violence, 15 assessed threats or fear, 11 asked about emotional abuse, and seven included items about sexual abuse. The time period about which screening tools inquired ranged from 'current' to 'ever'. The mean number of items in a screening tool was 4.2 (range one to 11).
The majority of studies were classified as fair or good quality; two were rated excellent and two poor.
The reported HITS sensitivity ranged from 30 to 100% and specificity from 86 to 99%. The reported WAST sensitivity was 47% and the specificity was 96%. The reported PVS sensitivity ranged from 35 to 71% and the specificity ranged from 80 to 94%. The reported AAS sensitivity ranged from 93 to 94% and the specificity ranged from 55 to 99%.
Two studies assessed intimate partner violence screening tools in male populations. One study found acceptable sensitivity (88%) and specificity (97%) for HITS in men recruited from an ambulatory care clinic, an HIV clinic, and an emergency department; the other found significantly lower sensitivities for HITS (30 to 46%) and the PVS (35 to 46%) in predominantly African-American men.