What is it about?

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) implicates various psychological health problems in women who suffer from it, often associated with the consumption of drugs. To date, studies mainly focus on quantitate data about psychopathological disorders. However, there are factors (i.e. resilience) preventing women from suffering and also helping to overcome certain psychological alterations and trauma. To analyze how resilient (or not) women face this gender violence situation and how their past events influence their current situation, 60 women from Spain (mean age= 37.03; SD =10.02; range = 21-61) were in-depth interviewed following the life stories method. Furthermore, once the interviews were processed, we content analyzed data to categorize responses into high and low resilience. Thus, we could analyze the relationship among variables. In particular, women with a higher level of resilience show a less development of psychopathologies and drug consumption. As a result resilience proves to be a key aspect to improve and promote the reduction of mental health problems in victims of gender violence.

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Why is it important?

Resiliencie is a concept within positive psychology that helps to understand how women face their recovery. qualitative analysis better captures how they face it.

Perspectives

With our qualitative study we have contributed to shedding light on the matter regarding the relationship between IPVAW and resilience. Our results show a negative relationship between resilience and psychopathological disorders and/or medication, demonstrating that resilient women maintain active coping strategies in facing the problem. The relationship between resilience and other psychosocial variables (i.e. objectives in life), favors their emotional health and therefore prevent the suffering from mental disorders.

Dr. Esther Lopez-Zafra
Universidad de Jaen

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This page is a summary of: The voices that should be heard: A qualitative and content analysis to explore resilience and psychological health in victims of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW), Women s Studies International Forum, January 2019, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2018.12.005.
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