It is a "horror story" for Tasmanian domestic violence support services provider Engender Equality.

Its chief executive Alina Thomas said such a wait meant women could turn from help and be lost to the support service system.

"When a person is waiting for three to four months to get access to the service they might wait and convince themselves that it is not that dangerous and that they can cope," Ms Thomas said.

"It is dependant on that person being able to maintain some kind of safety over a fairly long period of time, and at the same time, perceive their continued need for the services."

Ms Thomas said those who did get early access to support services are more likely to stay safe and not have violence escalate into high risk levels, such as intimate partner murder.

She said early intervention was key.

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"We need to share insights with other front-line services so that they are able to do some of that intervention work at the time they have contact with victim survivors and perpetrators so they are not then moving on to having that desperate need for a very specialised response."

Engender Equality policy officer Elinor Heard said breaking down some of the characteristics that might precede a fatal incident, as was achieved in the latest ANROWS report, is useful to investigate possible pathways to violence.

"Having that breakdown means we can look at really specific opportunities to intervene sooner for the women in those circumstances, and also look at the prevention of the trajectories of those perpetrators."

Ms Heard said the motivation to kill, across a majority of fatal incidents, was often associated with gender norms that challenged the men's masculinity.

"It reinforces family violence prevention's that target gender drivers of violence, giving impetus to reinforce positive traits of masculinity."