“Guardarse Las Cosas Adentro” (Keeping Things Inside): Latina Violence Survivors’ Perceptions of Depression

Abstract

The concept of "keeping things inside" was key to participants' understanding of the cause of depression and other health problems. Clinicians and depression care programs can potentially use such information to provide culturally-appropriate depression care to Latina women.

Proyecto Interconexiones : A Pilot Test of a Community-Based Depression Care Program for Latina Violence Survivors

“…Common themes related to why the program was helpful included the use of practical skills to address their depression symptoms. They confirm the themes from our earlier focus groups, 12 where participants asked for a culturally tailored, community-based program that offered practical information and strategies to concurrently address their depression and experiences of violence.…”

“…The Project Coordinator served as the promotora ’s assistant and co-facilitator. From our qualitative needs assessment 12 we hypothesized that participants would greatly appreciate culturally-tailored information about depression and practical self-management skills. Given the lack of local domestic violence support groups for Spanish-speaking women, we increased the group portion of the program to 12 sessions, regrouping some of the original material and adding 4 new sessions to the beginning of the program focusing on domestic violence (instead of referring them to domestic violence support groups, as in the original program).…”

“…Our academic-community partnership ( Proyecto Interconexiones / the Interconnections Project) previously conducted focus groups with White, 10 African-American, 11 and Latina 12 IPV survivors with symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Although participants in all groups felt that their physical health, mental health, and experiences of violence were inter-related, the three communities had distinct conceptualizations of health, barriers to effective healthcare, infrastructure strengths and needs, and recommendations for interventions.…”

The Interconnections Project: Development and Evaluation of a Community-Based Depression Program for African American Violence Survivors

“…A related partnership with the Latino community (Proyecto Interconexiones) is described separately. 29 Team members included a physician principal investigator (PI), a social work researcher, four African American community members with personal experience as domestic violence advocates or IPV survivors, administrative personnel from Bradley-Angle House, and several research assistants (RAs). Bradley-Angle House hired an African American IPV survivor and domestic violence advocate as the "Health Advocate" to deliver the intervention.…”

Motivational Interviewing at the Intersections of Depression and Intimate Partner Violence among African American Women

“…Together, we conducted a series of focus groups with African American(Nicolaidis et al, 2010), White(Nicolaidis et al, 2008), and Latina(Nicolaidis et al, 2011) depressed IPV survivors. Regardless of race or ethnicity, depressed IPV survivors shared the belief that their depression, physical health, and experiences of abuse are all extremely interconnected.…”