There are elevated rates of childhood maltreatment and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology in low-income, abused, suicidal African American women. This investigation aimed to: (1) identify the components of childhood maltreatment in this sample; (2) ascertain whether or not the constructs of childhood maltreatment and PTSD symptomatology were associated in this sample; and (3) examine if maladaptive coping mediated the childhood maltreatment-PTSD symptomatology link and if the magnitude of the mediated relationship was influenced by level of social support (i.e., moderated mediation). Specific types of childhood maltreatment generally loaded onto three components according to a principal components analysis (PCA) of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire: physical-emotional abuse, sexual-emotional abuse, and neglect. Women who endorsed experiencing higher levels of two of the childhood maltreatment components (physical-emotional abuse and sexual-emotional abuse) reported higher levels of current PTSD symptomatology. However, contrary to the study hypotheses, current level of maladaptive coping did not mediate the relationship between child maltreatment and current PTSD symptomatology. Further, the addition of social support did not change this finding. Results are discussed, clinical implications are explored, and recommendations for future studies are offered.

In this series of studies, I hypothesized that people’s perceptions of certain psychologically abusive acts as acceptable or not acceptable would impact whether they would remain in psychologically abusive relationships. In Study 1, I explored the historic link between low self-esteem in women and receiving high levels of abuse. I found that women who were low in self-esteem found psychologically abusive behavior depicted in a series of vignettes to be significantly more acceptable than did women who were high in self-esteem. In Study 2, I found that women who were currently in abusive relationships found psychologically abusive behavior depicted in a video to be significantly more acceptable than did women who were currently in non-abusive relationships. Furthermore, I found that the woman’s own abusive behavior toward her partner was a stronger predictor than the abusiveness of her partner of whether she endorsed that she would stay in the depicted abusive relationship. Also, I found that among women who were highly abusive toward their partners and high in self-esteem, the more abuse they were receiving from their current partners, the more acceptable they found the depicted abusive behaviors. Based on these findings, in Study 3 I explored whether priming women’s (a) awareness of their own aggressive behaviors and (b) how these behaviors could change might have stronger impact on women’s views of the acceptability of their own abusive behaviors than women’s awareness of their partner’s aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, I explored whether these different foci would have impact on real-life consequences in changing abuse levels in the current relationship. The findings were mixed; short-term effects implied that writing about conflict, no matter whether the focus is on the self’s aggression or the partner’s aggression, seemed to encourage women to regard leaving an abusive relationship as more acceptable than writing about a neutral topic. Over the long-term, however, writing about conflict, no matter whether the focus was on the self’s aggression or the partner’s aggression, exacerbated the partner’s psychologically aggressive behavior. / text

Purposes/Aims: The purpose of this study was to determine the professional, workplace and personal factors that significantly relate to advanced practice nurses' (APNs) self-efficacy to treat intimate partner violence (IPV).Rationale/Conceptual Basis/Background: IPV affects one in three women in the U.S. and is the leading cause of maternal death during the prenatal and first year post-partum periods. Older women victims suffer earlier death from all causes. IPV is under diagnosed and undertreated based on large surveys of emergency departments and outpatient clinics. APNs are providing health care to large numbers of potential victims, thus they are important as diagnosticians and treating clinicians. Methods: A national quantitative survey of APNs was performed with the aim of obtaining APNs from diverse specialties, geographic areas, and demographics within the U.S. Participants completed an electronic survey using modifications of standardized questionnaires on professional factors of hours of previous IPV education, IPV knowledge, years in practice, current practices, role belief, and self-efficacy to treat IPV. A new scale was developed to test workplace factors of screening tools and protocols, institutional, and community supports. Personal factors of age, gender, past IPV experience, vicarious trauma (VT), resilience, and general self-efficacy were tested using previously validated tools. Results: A sample of 494 APNs was obtained. Respondents were demographically representative of U.S. practicing APN population. Findings from this study indicate that APNs' current self-reported practice behaviors regarding IPV, total hours of IPV education, age in years, role belief, resilience, absence of VT and IPV knowledge are the most significant contributors to APNs' self-efficacy to treat IPV. Implications: APNs with strong clinical experience with IPV, more hours of IPV education, older age, belief that it is their role to treat IPV, and greater IPV knowledge, reported the best self-efficacy to treat IPV. Educational institutions should provide more formal and ongoing education in IPV. VT in APNs who treat IPV should be further explored. Health care organizations should provide continuing IPV education and provide work environments that promote the treatment of IPV for APNs to effectively identify and engage in treatment those patients who may be victims.

This thesis seeks to analyze the issue of intimate partner violence (IPV) within female same-sex relationships in order to uncover how/if it can be related to an invisibility of female same-sex relationships in society at large. By analyzing various articles and academic texts dealing with IPV in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, the hope is to establish some core differences and similarities within the field of IPV research. The analysis will also look at how the notion of the violent female is addressed, and how other characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age and ableness compound in the narratives of IPV in female same-sex relationships. The analysis will be carried out with the use of domestic violence theory through an ecological model which allows all environments an individual inhabits to be analyzed. Intersectionality alongside a post-colonial and queerfeminist approach will also be applied in the qualitative text analysis of the material. Numerous methods and explanations are put forward in the literature in order to explain IPV, in hetero and homo relationships. Lacking in the discussion is the image of the female abuser while also missing discussions on other intersecting identity markers.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a problem of global proportions that affect men and women worldwide. It is a problem that occurs in all stages of life where we have intimate partners, starting in adolescence. Previous research show that the prevalence of IPV in adolescence is high, around 30% in most parts of Europe and North America. In Scandinavia the levels are a bit lower with previous research showing rates from approximately 10 to 20%, although the research in the Scandinavian context is scarce. The effects of morality on IPV perpetration is even less studied, with previous research showing that there is a significant correlation between the personal morality regarding IPV (IPV morality) and IPV perpetration. The aim of the present study is to use a Situational action theory perspective to study the prevalence of physical IPV and to investigate if there are significant associations between IPV perpetration, levels of IPV morality and levels of partner conflict in a sample of Swedish adolescence. The study is cross-sectional and based on self-reported data collected in the Malmö Individual Neighborhood Development Study (MINDS) during 2014 when the participants were between 18-19 years old. The results showed an IPV prevalence around 4-7% and that there were significant associations between morality and IPV perpetration and between IPV morality and IPV perpetration. The association between partner conflict and IPV perpetration was not significant. Also, the results revealed that levels of IPV morality may shift depending on the situation and that girls seem to have lower IPV morality than boys. Furthermore, the results showed that IPV perpetration is bidirectional with boys and girls being as likely to commit acts of IPV.

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the stories of women who have been trapped in abusive relationships (victims of intimate partner violence (IPV)) and the process of how they moved on from these relationships to non-abusive relationships, thereby becoming survivors. The primary research question guiding the study is; How do the women describe their experiences of the processes that they underwent in leaving an abusive relationship and entering into a new, non-abusive, relationship? The study generates a rich description of their experiences, exploring what it is that makes these women unique in changing their identities from victim of abuse to survivor. This is done by taking an in-depth look at each participant’s story and uncovering the personal meanings that they ascribed to these experiences. Literature from past studies is also explored as various authors describe IPV, factors related to IPV and how their illustrations coincide or differ from the findings of this study. A narrative research approach is used in this study. Narrative research falls under the umbrella of postmodernism and is conducted with a social constructionist outlook. The narrative approach views knowledge as generated by exploring subjective experience and how the individual makes meaning with emphasis on context. This study, therefore, focuses on how the participant’s identities are constructed over time as a result of making meaning from their experiences, through self-exploration, social processes and through interactions with others. Data was gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. The tool used for analysis of the stories was the Three-Dimensional Space Approach, the specific tools being; analysis of situation, interaction and continuity. This approach allows for the data to be analysed, not as a given truth but rather, as meaning is generated from the unique perspective of each individual participant in the context, as well as how it was interpreted by myself, the researcher. The results explore this process through the themes of a message from each participant: commitment as it preceded the abuse, identity, control and manipulation at the hands of the perpetrator, and everyone needs someone to help. These themes were then integrated with the literature. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Psychology / unrestricted

Despite decades of research on intimate-partner violence (IPV), debates and unanswered questions abound in the literature, to which many disciplines—psychology, sociology, criminal justice, law, and public health—have contributed. One long-standing and particularly contentious debate regards gender symmetry, or whether women are as violent in intimate relationships as men. This essay begins with a historical overview of IPV research; it then summarizes recent work on gender and IPV and discusses how estimates of the prevalence and gender distribution of IPV vary depending on its definition and measurement. Reviewing the literature on the heterogeneity of IPV, this essay notes that better understanding of different IPV types may resolve some discrepancies in research. The essay also considers how gender norms may shape IPV and reviews research on experiences of sexual minorities and of those of different races, immigration statuses, and cultures. The final section identifies topics in need of further exploration over the next decade.

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Limited data exists on intimate partner violence (IPV) among transgender women (TW), though global trends suggest IPV is associated with HIV risk in this population. We describe the prevalence of verbal, physical, and/or sexual violence as well as participant- and partner-level correlates of IPV among TW in Lima, Peru. Among 389 respondents, 15.2% reported IPV with one or more of their last three sexual partners: 9.2% verbal, 8.2% physical, and 2.3% sexual violence. Physical and verbal violence were more common with stable partners (aPR 3.46, 95% CI 1.17–10.25, aPR 2.46, 95% CI 1.14–5.28, respectively). Physical violence was associated with condomless receptive anal intercourse (cRAI) (aPR 2.22, 95% CI 1.19–4.13) and partner alcohol use (aPR 4.38, 95% CI 1.56–12.33) while verbal violence correlated with participant inebriation (aPR 4.86, 95% CI 1.63–14.46). Our results link IPV with stable partnerships, alcohol use, and cRAI, suggesting TW in Peru may benefit from multidimensional IPV prevention strategies to foster supportive relationships and reduce HIV transmission. / amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research / Revisión por pares

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health issue that transcends cultures and nationalities. Women and men have been impacted by sexual violence through rape and other types of IPV. Each year, women experience IPV before and during pregnancies and are impacted by physical and psychological outcomes as a result. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of IPV on the health outcomes of diabetes (Types 1, 2, and gestational), high blood pressure before pregnancy, and depression/anxiety among adult women before and during pregnancy. The social ecological model provided the framework for this quantitative cross-sectional study that included national data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System between 2012 and 2015. A series of binary logistic regressions was conducted. Findings indicated significant predictive relationships between IPV and diabetes before pregnancy (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.01-1.43), high blood pressure before pregnancy (OR = 1.65, 95% CI =1.47-1.85), and depression/anxiety before and during pregnancy, respectively (OR = 3.14, 95% CI 2.91-3.35 and OR = 9.03, 95% CI 7.37-11.05) after controlling for age, income, and race. A social change implication of this study is that results from this project may assist in increasing societal knowledge of what IPV is and its physical and psychological impacts on women before and during pregnancy.