The Relationship of Abuse to Women’s Health Status and Health Habits

Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between exposure to abuse and women's health status and health behaviors in a sample of rural women. One hundred forty-eight women visiting a community health care center completed survey packets that included measures that assessed exposure to abuse, adoption of a negative psychological perspective, identified physical and mental health problems and health behaviors, and the extent of health care usage. The results indicated that exposure to abuse was positively and significantly related to the adoption of a negative psychological perspective, which in turn was negatively correlated with physical and mental health, as well as with the practice of healthy behaviors. Results also indicated that women who have been exposed to abuse engage in less healthy behaviors and utilize more health care resources than do women with no such exposure. Implications for improving the assessment and treatment of abuse in health care settings were discussed.Approved:

Negotiating Peril

“…The psychological effects of abuse on the woman have been well documented in the literature (Campbell, 2002; Golding, 1999; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000; Tomasulo & McNamara, 2007). Consistent with the literature, these women also displayed compromised integrity related to self-esteem and self-worth.…”

Mental and Physical Health and Intimate Partner Violence against Women: A Review of the Literature

“…In almost all of the available studies, women's functional health status was poorer and chronic health problems more prevalent compared with other women. These findings point to chronic physical disease mediated through high levels of stress, reduced practice of healthy behaviours [66], and limited agency in deciding on lifestyle choices [82]. The reported findings from the included qualitative research adds a richness and a personal perspective to the understanding of the experiences of women who have had to live with intimate partner violence.…”

“…These studies used a range of measurement instruments to report on generalized mental health status and functioning. The Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) mental health component score was used in five studies [16, 19, 31, 63, 64] and the shorter SF-12 form in two other studies [65, 66]. Other tools used to measure self-reported mental health status were the WHO developed Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) used in three studies [45, 57, 60], the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) used in three studies [8, 12, 67] and a development of author's own questions [13, 38] or the use of a range of questions extracted from several survey instruments [49].…”

“…For the purpose of this review, a study was considered to report functional physical health if it reported on measures of physical functioning and role limitation from the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) [16, 19, 63, 64] or the shorter 12-item version (SF-12) [65, 66, 73] measures, the Patient Health Questionnaire tool (PHQ-15) tool [35] or studies that incorporated their own questions relating to physical health function [25], injury and illness disability [17], and difficulty walking or in performing daily activities [57, 60]. All of the above-mentioned scales are validated tools for measuring physical health.…”

“…Self-perceived poor health status was significantly associated with intimate partner violence in seven of these studies [17, 26, 33, 38, 60, 66, 67]. As well as physical abuse, nonphysical forms of violence in the form of emotional [60, 67] and psychological [38, 66] abuse were also implicated with lowered levels of perceived physical health. The only study reporting no significant association between the presence of partner violence and lowered levels of reported physical health was Chen et al [19], as mentioned previously.…”