Ethnic Differences in Battered Women's Formal Help-Seeking Strategies: A Focus on Health, Mental Health, and Spirituality.

Abstract

The primary goal of this study was to identify ethnic differences in battered women's use of health, mental health, and spiritual coping strategies, as well as differences in the perceived helpfulness of each strategy. The authors recruited a sample of 376 African American and Caucasian victims of interpersonal violence from various sites. In comparison with Caucasian women in the sample, African American women were significantly more likely to report using prayer as a coping strategy and significantly less likely to seek help from mental health counselors. The 2 groups did not significantly differ in terms of the extent to which they sought help from clergy or medical professionals. African American women found prayer to be more helpful than did Caucasian women.

Intimate Partner Violence and Safety Strategy Use: Frequency of Use and Perceived Effectiveness

“…Safety strategy use was measured using the Intimate Partner Violence Strategies Index (El-Khoury et al, 2004;Goodman, Dutton, Vankos, & Weinfurt, 2005;Goodman et al, 2003), Community Agencies Assessment (Wiist & McFarlane, 1998), or by providing a list of safety strategies and asking women to indicate those they had used (Coker, Derrick, Lumpkin, Aldrich, & Oldendick, 2000;Davies, Block, & Campbell, 2007;Goodkind, Sullivan, & Bybee, 2004;Logan, Shannon, Cole, & Walker, 2006;O'Campo, McDonnell, Gielen, Burke, & Chen, 2002;Shannon, Logan, Cole, & Medley, 2006).…”

Coping variables that mediate the relation between intimate partner violence and mental health outcomes among low-income, African American women

“…There is limited information on types of services abused African American women seek for assistance (El-Khoury et al, 2004) and there is a complex association between race, social class, IPV severity, children in the household, and medical service utilization (Bachman & Coker, 1995;Henning & Klesges, 2002;Hutchison & Hirschel, 1998;West, Kantor, & Jasinski, 1998). Abused women, including those who are African American, use more medical, mental health, and legal services than nonabused women (Paranjape, Heron, & Kaslow, 2006;Ulrich et al, 2003).…”

“…African American women experience more severe abuse (El-Khoury et al, 2004;Sullivan & Rumptz, 1994) and are more likely to be revictimized by their abusers (Carlson, Harris, & Holden, 1999) than White or Latina women are.…”

Strategies Used by Rural Women to Stop, Avoid, or Escape From Intimate Partner Violence

“…The IPVSI (Goodman, Dutton, Weinfurt, & Cook, 2003) was developed for this purpose and has been used in studies of Caucasian and African American women living in urban centers in the United States (El-Khoury et al, 2004;Goodman et al, 2003;Goodman, Dutton, Vankos, & Weinfurt, 2005). In one such study (Goodman et al, 2003), women were more likely to use private strategies (e.g., placating, resistance) than public strategies (e.g., seeking formal and informal help), even though private strategies, were the least helpful in stopping or preventing the violence.…”