Recovering From Intimate Partner Violence Through Strengths and Empowerment

Abstract

Objective: Recovering from Intimate Partner Violence through Strengths and Empowerment (RISE) is a brief, variable-length (1-6 sessions), modular, individualized psychosocial counseling intervention for women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). Pilot findings demonstrated the potential helpfulness, acceptability, and feasibility of RISE; however, a randomized clinical trial (RCT) is needed to support program effectiveness. Methods: This RCT enrolled 60 women who experienced

Women Tell All: A Comparative Thematic Analysis of Women’s Perspectives on Two Brief Counseling Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence

“…Women in both intervention groups noted that they felt comforted and supported through learning about the wide prevalence of IPV (e.g., by not feeling alone in their experiences), while women in RISE shared that they reached out to their support systems and the people they listed on their safety plan to feel connected. It is possible that RISE’s “Enhancing Social Support” module and accompanying worksheets encouraged women to reach out to support systems including friends and family members in a more concrete way than women in the ECAU condition, perhaps contributing to positive quantitative psychosocial outcomes and more overall satisfaction with the RISE intervention observed in the parent study [ 38 ].…”

“…RISE’s multi-session format and client-centered strategies are aligned with trauma-informed counseling and other multi-session evidence-based trauma focused therapies (e.g., Prolonged Exposure [PE]) [ 64 ] that include between session practice to consolidate and further treatment gains. RISE was designed not to elicit trauma-focused details from survivors of IPV, but instead to provide a trauma-informed, non-judgmental intervention where women can discuss their IPV history in broad strokes while focusing on developing skills to prevent future IPV experiences, and enhancing empowerment and self-efficacy, both of which are primary factors that may be associated with long-term benefits in the lives of women [ 38 ].…”

“…We conducted semi-structured interviews with participants 10- and 14-weeks following enrollment in a RCT comparing the Recovering from Intimate Partner Violence through Strengths and Empowerment (RISE) brief counseling intervention to an ECAU comparison condition for women Veterans VHA patients who experienced past-year IPV (registered in ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT03261700). The larger RCT and primary quantitative findings have been described elsewhere [ 38 ]. In brief, the study took place at an urban VHA medical center in the New England region of the US between October 2018 and November 2020.…”

“…At the enrollment session, women provided written informed consent and filled out a packet of questionnaires for their pre-treatment assessment. They were randomized to receive RISE or ECAU, which they received immediately following their pre-treatment assessment (for additional details on primary and secondary quantitative measures and findings, see Iverson et al) [ 38 ]. Most participants ( n = 50) received sessions and assessments in person at a local VHA medical center as was intended with the original study design, and 10 participants received one or more sessions and/or assessments via telehealth due to the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…The current study begins to fill the aforementioned gaps in the literature by incorporating qualitative methods along with helpfulness ratings to assess women Veterans’ IPV treatment experiences within the context of a larger randomized clinical trial (RCT) study. This RCT targeted women Veterans of the United States Armed Services who were patients of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and compared a new empowerment-focused modular-based brief counseling intervention (described in more detail in the Methods section) to an advocacy-based Enhanced Care as Usual (ECAU) intervention [ 38 ]. The present study examines post-treatment semi-structured interview data from the parent RCT to understand women Veterans’ perceptions of the IPV interventions with respect to usefulness, acceptability, and perceived impact, and to gather feedback for informing future implementation of IPV counseling programs.…”