Prof Kelsey Hegarty

Kelsey Hegarty is an academic general practitioner who currently works as a Professor and leads an Abuse and Violence in primary care research program. Her current research includes the evidence base for interventions to prevent violence against women; educational and complex interventions around identification of family violence in primary care settings and responding to women and children exposed to abuse through primary care and through the use of new technologies.

During the last decade Kelsey has contributed at both national and international levels to the intimate partner violence field. She has developed a program of research in family violence, which commenced with her thesis. For this, she developed a new measure of domestic violence the Composite Abuse Scale, which is the first validated multidimensional measure of partner abuse. It has been used extensively globally and is available in 10 languages. She has co-edited a book on “Intimate partner abuse for health professionals” and is on two Cochrane systematic reviews of screening and advocacy interventions for domestic violence. She played a significant role in the development of Royal Australian College of General Practice White Book on Abuse and Violence and a gplearning module. She has developed an innovative domestic violence curriculum for health practitioners and she regularly teaches domestic violence and mental health issues to undergraduates and postgraduate medical and nursing practitioners.

She is currently chair of the governance group of the Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria. She is also Director of the Postgraduate Primary Care Nursing Course at the University of Melbourne. She works in general practice 2 sessions per week.