Women’s Experiences of Safety Apps for Sexualized Violence: A Narrative Scoping Review

Abstract

Background Sexualized violence against women is a significant human rights problem worldwide. Safety apps have the capacity to provide women with resources to prevent or respond to experiences of sexualized violence. The aim of the following study was to review the scope of the literature on women’s experiences of safety apps related to sexualized violence and identify if there is a current gap in this literature. Methods This scoping review employed a systematic methodology guided by the Arksey and O’Malley framework. The search for this scoping review was conducted in January 2020 and four electronic databases were searched: Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus. Reference lists of systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and literature reviews that were found through the search of databases were also checked to ensure all relevant studies had been screened. Last, the table of contents for the last five years (2015–2020) were hand searched in four key journals (Journal of Technology in Human Services, Violence Against Women, BMC Public Health, and Health Promotion International) to identify any articles that may have been missed in the database search. Covidence was used to complete the screening. All data that met inclusion criteria was charted, extracted and synthesized. Results Across the four databases searched, a total of 389 studies were identified; 127 duplicates were removed, resulting in 262 studies screened. In total, 6 studies were included from the search of databases and 1 study was included from hand-searching, for a total of 7 included studies. Thematic analysis identified the following themes in the literature, which are summarized narratively: (1) security; (2) accessibility; and (3) knowledge. Recommendations and barriers found in relation to each theme are also presented. Conclusions This review confirms that the qualitative literature on women’s experiences of sexualized violence safety apps is scarce and exposes that a gap in the literature on this topic. The gaps in the literature were identified and implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Generic personal safety applications: empowering victims of domestic violence and abuse? A practitioner lens

“…Notably, it focused on female, English-speaking, young white victims, thus excluding other groups. Doria et al (2020) note that to increase the effectiveness of PSAs, they must become more personalised. We add that this accessibility must also reflect both a recognition of nonstereotyped victims of DVA and must include multi-lingual features to not exclude the uptake of PSAs by those who are non-English speaking.…”

Primary Crime Prevention Apps: A Typology and Scoping Review

“…Some of the apps discussed in this literature, such as Cheeka (Kanagaraj et al, 2013), were not targeted at a particular demographic. However, the majority of this literature ( n = 14) concerned apps designed specifically for women’s safety (see Doria et al, 2020; Eisenhut et al, 2020). This echoes Maxwell et al’s (2019, p. 8) finding that while 19% of the 505 personal safety apps available on the AppStore and Google Play specifically targeted women in their title (e.g., Be-Safe: The Women Safety App ), or use of terms likely to be more relatable to women, none of the apps they located targeted men specifically.…”

“…A further subset of research on personal safety apps is focused on preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) through providing personalized information and decision aids: tools designed to assist individuals in making decisions based on high-quality evidence, especially in relation to health care decisions (Doria et al, 2020; Tarzia et al, 2017). Unlike the personal safety apps discussed above, research into this subset often draws on user group research, to ascertain the suitability (Bloom et al, 2016), and/or usability of proposed apps designed to assist women in abusive relationships.…”

Save Me Emergency Detection in Mobile Application for Teenagers

“…The Android OS platform follows the Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) principle, an autonomous platform that suits multiple tools available in the market (Azman et al, 2019). This platform allows the user to fully use all the hardware resources and produce the best result, while on other systems, hardware cannot be used without the owner (Doria et al, 2020).…”