Objective: Several studies have reported that care and support staff has a tendency to ignore recognising violence against women with mental illness, which lead to increased feelings of stigma in these women. Today there is a lack of in-depth knowledge about factors that may influence care providers attitudes in encounters with these women. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe how staff experience and understand their everyday work with abused women with mental illness.

Methods: 13 professionals who in their working practice encountered women with mental illness and experience of abuse were interviewed by means of unstructured thematic interviews. Data were analysed by using latent content analysis in order to identify categories a nd themes.

Results: Participating staff found it hard to understand abuse against women with mental illness. They lack knowledge about how to handle and interpret this phenomenon and developed personal frames of interpretations and strategies for handling the women’s needs. They experienced their everyday work with these women as painful and ambiguous and made them act pragmatic mainly in a practical way that sometimes included assertive attitudes.

Conclusion: Staff working with abused women with mental illness is in a vulnerable position due to lack of understanding and knowledge about the phenomenon. In such position it is at risk to adopt stigmatised attitudes against the women and thereby challenge the professionals’ occupational safety.