Injuries Can Result From Violence Injuries Can Result From Violence Injuries can result from many different incidents. One particularly important incident that causes injury is domestic violence. Statistically it is estimated that 1.8 to 3-4 million cases of domestic violence occur each year, unfortunately the number of cases that occur cannot be more accurate due to domestic violence usually occurring in the relative privacy of own home. (Kelly, 2003) As disturbing as these numbers may be, we must recognize that domestic violence is not a new problem appearing in American homes, but what is new is that we are now more aware of how serious the problem of domestic violence is in today's society. Today, domestic violence, in its broadest definition, is defined as verbal, emotional, threatening, or physical abuse between current or former intimate partners and includes any blood relative. (Robert, 2002) They may currently be living in the same household or have been in the same household in the past for this to be considered domestic. Domestic violence has no barriers. It affects any race, religion, culture or socioeconomic status. In today's world every nurse, knowingly or not, is more likely to encounter a situation involving domestic violence. (Nucero & O'Connor, 2002) Therefore, it is important that within this discussion the following issues are identified: the severity of domestic violence and what factors contribute to domestic violence, what role the legal system should take when dealing with domestic violence do incidents of violence occur and, finally, what can a nurse and the medical world do to identify and assess domestic violence. Domestic violence is a serious problem that affects many people every year...... middle of paper ......ic violence, as we can see from the information read above, causes injuries. It is a very serious problem for people living in an abusive home environment and with today's legal system domestic violence cases are taken extremely seriously. It is important that as nurses, if we feel that someone is in an abusive home environment, we identify these patients and assess as needed. Through nurses' identification and assessment of victims of violent acts, we can help these people and help decrease the number of violent acts that occur. If a nurse or anyone else knows or suspects that someone is being abused, we need to let the victim know that there are alternative solutions, choices they can make, and that there is hope for resolving the problem at hand. We should also let this victim know that without help, this problem will only get worse and may progress in frequency and severity.