The Relationship Between Women’s Resources and Health-Related Quality of Life in a Sample of Female Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

While it is known that resource inadequacy increases the risk of exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) and that women’s health is significantly impacted by IPV, scant research has documented diminished resources as a primary determinant of women’s health. Fifty female victims of moderate to severe IPV completed assessments of their physical, sexual and psychological experiences of IPV, resource profile, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression and mental and physical health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Women’s resources, controlling for age, income, psychological abuse and sexual coercion, were unique predictors of symptoms of PTSD, symptoms of depression; and mental HRQoL. The public health implications of the adequacy of women’s resources are discussed in the context of IPV prevention and intervention. Future studies should evaluate the efficacy of economic empowerment programs regarding the impact on IPV survivors’ mental and physical health and safety.

Keywords:

• Intimate partner violence
• posttraumatic stress disorder
• resources
• quality of life

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our tremendous appreciation for the willingness of the women in this study to share their experiences. We would also like to thank the domestic violence community within the greater Saint Louis region for their collaboration on this project. In addition, we would like to thank Stacey Sand, Maysa Akbar, Mary Uhlmansiek, Traci Sitzer, and Emily McVay for their assistance with participant recruitment, data collection, and data entry. Points of view expressed within this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Institutes of Health or the National Institute of Mental Health.

Notes

1 Considering that physical abuse was not significantly correlated with any of the dependent variables and the limited power of the sample, we did not include physical abuse in the final models. Of note, we did run the regressions including all the measures of abuse (physical psychological maltreatment, sexual coercion) and the results were unchanged.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant R03 MH 61661 02, Terri L. Weaver, Ph.D., principal investigator. Additional support for this project was provided by an internal grant from Saint Louis University.