Introduction: Violence against women in intimate relationships is a public health problem worldwide and the consequences of violence are devastating for women. Healthcare professionals need to have knowledge of screening in order to be able to detect and identify women exposed to violence early, which is a prerequisite for good care.

Aim: The purpose was to describe the experiences of women exposed to violence in a close relationships in the encounter with healthcare professionals in the healthcare setting.

Method: A literature review was used as a data collection method with a descriptive design. The PubMed and Psycinfo databases were used, twelve articles were found and included in the work. The articles were checked by the SBU's review template for qualitative studies (Statens berlanding för mediksin och social utvärmedning [SBU], 2022). The results were reviewed using Popenoe's results analysis (Popenoe et al., 2021).

Result: Three categories emerged: Communication, Barriers to disclosing violence in intimate relationships and Creating a care relationship. It emerged that the women experienced a lack of information about what help the healthcare staff could offer. It emerged that healthcare staff did not dare to ask questions about violence because they were afraid of the answer. Two barriers to disclosure of violence were also identified and there was fear among the women because they believed that the family would be negatively affected and that the healthcare staff was perceived to be stressed in the meeting. Several good and bad meetings were also described by the women and in order to create a trusting relationship, the healthcare staff needed to create trust through active listening and by showing empathy.

Conclusion: The literature review showed that the women experienced inadequate communication from the healthcare staff. There was uncertainty among the healthcare staff which resulted in the women not always being asked about violence in intimate relationships. Several barriers to disclosing violence in intimate relationships emerged. The women were afraid of losing their family, afraid of being judged and that the healthcare environment was an obstacle to telling.