Contextualizing Depression and Physical Functioning in Battered Women

Abstract

This investigation examined the relationships between physical, psychological, and sexual abuse along with vulnerability appraisals, positive and negative social relations, and socioeconomic resources on battered women's depression symptomatology and physical functioning. Women were recruited following an incident of partner violence that resulted in a police-report or the filing of a protection order. Participants were surveyed using a standardized questionnaire. Bivariate correlations and multiple regressions were used to examine the relationships between predictors as well as the cumulative and unique contributions of each variable set in explaining depression and physical functioning. Findings indicate that vulnerability appraisals, social relations, and socioeconomic resources significantly explain women's depression and physical functioning over and above the unique effect of specific types of partner violence. Given that women's physical and mental health are important aspects of assisting women with safety planning and violence cessation strategies, implications for assessment and interventions for battered women are discussed.

Battered Women's Profiles Associated with Service Help-Seeking Efforts: Illuminating Opportunities for Intervention

“…A consistent finding in the correlational analyses is that negative social relationships positively relate to helpseeking efforts for many service categories. This adds a useful dimension to earlier findings that low social support is related to increased psychological distress (Thompson et al, 2000) and poor physical functioning in battered women (Nurius et al, 2003). The present findings suggest that negative social interactions may prompt a woman to seek formal services when she does not find adequate support in her social networks.…”

Psychological Aggression, Physical Aggression, and Injury in Nonpartner Relationships Among Men and Women in Treatment for Substance-Use Disorders

“…Hypotheses that have been proffered to explain this relationship include the idea that some patients with depressive disorders have increased levels of agitation, irritability, and hostility (for a review, see Painuly et al, 2005), which could potentially lead to aggressive behavior. Conversely, some recipients of interpersonal aggression may experience depressed mood because they blame themselves for the occurrence of aggression (e.g., Calveti et al, 2007) or because of perceptions of being vulnerable to more abuse and/or being unable to leave the abusive relationship (Nurius et al, 2003). Although our study cannot help resolve this question, to our knowledge it is the fi rst study to illustrate the relative importance of current depression as it relates to nonpartner aggression (both to and from) within an SUD sample.…”

Psychological intimate partner violence: the major predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder in abused women

“…A number of mental disturbances have been described in physically abused women: posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [1,2,8,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], depression [1,4,8,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30], anxiety [25,27,31], sleeping disturbances [32,33], eating disorders [34], social dysfunction, suicide ideation and attempts [7,35,36], and increased likelihood to develop substance abuse behavior [1,13,24,27,28,[37][38][39][40].…”