Approximately two women are killed each week by a former or current partner (Coleman & Osbourne, 2010); yet many people ask why women stay in their respective relationships. The aim of this thesis was to explore the experiences and perceptions of victims in disclosure to the health care service, as for many victims this may be their first point of contact (Richardson & Feder, 1996). This thesis contains a systematic review, an empirical research study, a case study and a critique of a psychometric measure. Overall, the findings of this thesis demonstrate that although victims' decisions to leave their abusive partners can be difficult, there are certain factors that may help victims to leave such as receiving external support. The systematic review in this thesis investigated the experiences and perceptions of victims in disclosure to the health care service; the review revealed a lack of studies in the UK in this area. However, the findings of this review were still deemed to be useful as they provided insight into the barriers and facilitators that women experience when disclosing to the health care service. An empirical investigation was also conducted that explored the experiences of disclosure of 29 victims to the UK health service; barriers and facilitators were identified that supported the findings from the systematic review. The case study of a female who had experienced domestic violence was used in this thesis. This case study supported the fact that victims may develop low self-esteem as a result of abuse and may benefit from psychological interventions. A critique of the Abusive Behaviour Inventory (ABI), a psychometric measure used in both empirical studies, was included in this thesis and recommendations were made to improve the tool’s use. This tool failed to take into consideration individual differences in victims.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:716482 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Heron, Rebecca |
| Publisher | University of Nottingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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