Background: Intimate partner violence is a major social problem and it's mainly women who are affected. Nurses have a responsibility to identify these women exposed to violence in order to provide them with adequate care. Routines and guidelines in identification exists but many women exposed to violence remain unidentified.

Aim: To describe which factors influence nurses' identification of women exposed to intimate partner violence.

Method: A literature review was completed where eleven articles have been searched through the databases Cinahl and Pubmed. The articles were analysed according to a five-step model.

Results: Several factors emerged which are summarized into three categories: Factors regarding the nurse, Factors regarding the women exposed to violence and Factors in the health care environment.

Conclusion: Important factors were the nurses' idea of and relationship with the women exposed to violence, lack of education and absence of privacy and routines.