Variations in Help-Seeking, Battered Women's Relationship Course, Emotional Well-Being, and Experiences of Abuse Over Time

Abstract

Despite assumptions that leaving the batterer offers the best chance for improvement in battered women's lives, few studies provide conclusive data on this issue. Although many women eventually reunite with partners, also unexamined is the influence of relationship course over time. Five waves of data from 206 low‐income, largely Black, help‐seeking battered women revealed minimal differences in emotional well‐being either initially or over time for women following different relationship trajectories during the course of 1 year. Consistency in relationship status (completely apart, completely together) tended to be associated with sharper drops in violence during the year; abuse tended to decrease most slowly among women who were in and out of their relationship over time. Findings suggest that the act of leaving is not necessarily associated with improvements for victims—how the process of leaving occurs may be more influential. Challenging common assumptions, women remaining with partners may sometimes fare better than women who leave.

“My Partner Will Change”: Cognitive Distortion in Battered Women in Bolivia

“…Our longitudinal design enabled these findings: A cross-sectional design (e.g., at the first or second time of measurement) would not have depicted the change in cognitions and-alongside-intentions. Such longitudinal studies are still scarce, although evidence shows that leaving a violent partner is a dynamic process that is, at best, investigated over time (Bell et al, 2007(Bell et al, , 2009.…”

An Integrative Theoretical Model of Intimate Partner Violence, Coparenting After Separation, and Maternal and Child Well‐Being

“…Studies that have examined violence cessation specifically (vs. relationship status) report that depression (Golding, 1999) and physical health symptoms (Campbell & Soeken, 1999) improve once violence ends. Thus, it is critical that future research contextualizes the postseparation experience to better understand the long‐term implications of coparenting with an abusive former partner (Bell, Goodman, & Dutton, 2009; Ford‐Gilboe et al, 2009). More specifically, research is needed to understand how ongoing violence, harassment, and control, as well as other stressors associated with the separation or divorce and coparenting process, contribute to elevated physical and mental health symptoms over time.…”

“…For example, research based on this model can inform the development of screening tools for courts and health‐care professionals to identify the differential needs of separating parents and ensure that recommendations and referrals match their health and safety needs (Frye, Manganello, Campbell, Walton‐Moss, & Wilt, 2006; Kelly & Johnson, 2008). Importantly, services and support must extend beyond helping abused women leave their partners (given that most do leave; Bell et al, 2009) to helping them navigate the longer term process of coparenting with an abusive former partner in ways that promote safety and facilitate improved physical and mental health (Adkins & Kamp Dush, 2010; Bell et al, 2009). …”

“…More specifically, research is needed to understand how ongoing violence, harassment, and control, as well as other stressors associated with the separation or divorce and coparenting process, contribute to elevated physical and mental health symptoms over time. Also needed are studies that examine the extent to which the stress of preseparation violence and control may be replaced by the stressors of ongoing contact with an abusive former partner (e.g., persistent fear) for the purposes of coparenting (Bell et al, 2009). The ICAS Model serves to contextualize the postseparation experience by explicating the ways in which coparenting relationship quality as well as ongoing violence, harassment, and control continue to influence maternal and child well-being after separation.…”

Patterns of healthcare services utilization associated with intimate partner violence (IPV): Effects of IPV screening and receiving information on support services in a cohort of perinatal women

“…External societal factors surrounding women's status and the actions of perpetrators [20] can also affect women's help seeking behaviors and whether women disclose IPV to a HCP [27,28]. Meanwhile, a related gap remains understudied among minority women experiencing IPV, whose help seeking was even lower [29,30], as they face more social and economic barriers to HCS use than others [23,[31][32][33][34].…”