Methodological issues in the study of violence against women

A preliminary study of domestic violence in a rural community in Central province, Sri Lanka

“…It is clearly stated in the law that a protection order could be obtained directly from Magistrate Court with the help of a lawyer. Lack of help seeking behavior were due to embarrassment, concerns of family reputation and fear of more violence and some women have accepted violence as normal behavior 6 , where in this study 34% agreed similarly. This situation indeed is a downfall of all the reenforcements that are carried to empower victims of DV, since many people will stay behind assuming DV must be tolerated than act upon.…”

“…Apart from that Alcoholism, relationship problems, lack of awareness regarding DV were the risk factors identified by the study group. This is in consistence with existing literature of risk factors in the local context 6 .…”

“…There can be characteristics of the victims and perpetrators that lead to acts of DV and the effects of such acts can remain long term, thus, understanding the nature of this problem is important in preventive aspects. Due to the very nature of matters arising related to DV, the problems cannot be directly observed 6 and many reasons such as taboos, fear and feelings of guilt and shame can account for not coming forward 7 .…”

Intimate Partner Violence Between Unmarried Parents Before and During Participation in a Couple and Relationship Education Program

“…The voluntary nature of the reports of IPV during the project may constitute a low baseline of actual incidents, although the relationship coaches had frequent conversations with the couples about their conflicts. Moreover, the rates of IPV in this study are comparable to those in therapy populations (Simpson, Doss, Wheeler, & Christensen, 2007), and IPV assessments of all kinds suffer from potential under-reporting (Ruiz-Pérez, Plazaola-Castaño, & Vives-Cases, 2007).…”

Intimate Partner Violence in Older Women in Spain: Prevalence, Health Consequences, and Service Utilization

“…A study among women over 55 found that physical and sexual IPV is less frequent in older than in younger women (Zink, Fisher, Regan, & Pabst, 2005), while another study revealed that the frequency among women over 65 is similar to the frequency detected among younger women . Those contradictions may be explained by the definition of violence and how this violence has been assessed, the culture, age distribution of the population studied, length of the observation period, and the sampling extraction methodology used (Ruiz-Pérez, Plazaola-Castaño, & Vives-Cases, 2007).…”