THE RELATIONSHIP OF SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE (SGBV) TO SEXUAL RISK BEHAVIORS AMONG REFUGEE WOMEN IN BOTSWANA: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF DEPRESSION
Johannes John-Langba, Ph.D., M.P.H.
University of Pittsburgh, 2004
This study investigated the relationships of SGBV, learned helplessness, depression, and sexual-risk behaviors among refugee women in Botswana. It was guided by the reformulated theory of learned helplessness. A cross-sectional research design that was primarily quantitative was utilized to examine the relationship between SGBV and sexual-risk behavior in refugee situations and how depression and learned helplessness affect this relationship. A total of 402 female refugees who were at least 21 years old residing at the Dukwi refugee camp participated in this investigation.
This study found that about 75% of participants had experienced some form of SGBV either in their home country, during flight/transit, or in the host country. More than half (56.4%) had experienced SGBV in their home countries, 39.3% reported experiencing SGBV during flight/transit, and about 37% of the participants reported having experienced SGBV while in Botswana.
Simultaneous multiple regression analysis showed that overall past SGBV predicts current sexual-risk behavior among refugee women (F = 2.018; p < .011). However, when the standardized regression coefficients of the individual independent variables were examined, only past sexual violence was found to contribute significantly to the prediction of sexual-risk behavior (Beta = .461; p< .024).accounting for 15% of the variance with sexual-risk behavior.
Although, the hypothesized mediating roles of learned helplessness and depression on the relationship between past SGBV and current sexual-risk behavior were not supported in this study, more than half of the participants (55%) experienced learned helplessness and about 90% were depressed.
The findings of this study provide social work and public health practitioners who are faced with the multi-faceted task of program design and implementation in refugee situations with some vital indicators of the psycho-social and reproductive health needs of refugee women in a camp setting. It also underscores the need to adapt prevention and response measures to suit the different circumstances of the various phases of forced migration.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-10052004-125950 |
| Date | 11 October 2004 |
| Creators | John-Langba, Johannes |
| Contributors | Dr. Ravi Sharma, De Larry E. Davis, Dr. Rafael Engel, Dr Sandra Wexler |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-10052004-125950/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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