Violence against women
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Violence against women · Feb 2009
If she is not a victim, does that mean she was not traumatized? Evaluation of predictors of PTSD symptomatology among college rape victims.
The issue of whether individuals can be traumatized by the experience of rape if they do not label the experience a victimization remains controversial. Indeed, there are conflicting findings with regard to the extent to which such unacknowledged victims experience posttraumatic symptoms. The goal of the current study was to evaluate acknowledgment status as a predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology using structural equation modeling among a sample of 346 college rape victims. Results showed that whereas acknowledged victims reported more symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, acknowledgment status did not add to the prediction of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in a model including assault violence and other important predictors of these symptoms.
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Violence against women · Dec 2008
Factors associated with engagement in a police-advocacy home-visit intervention to prevent domestic violence.
This study examines factors related to engagement in the services offered by police officer-advocate teams on the basis of police and clinical records for 301 female victims referred to the Domestic Violence Home Visit Intervention (DVHVI) program. The authors find that the severity of intimate partner violence charges and ethnicity of the victim, advocate, and police officer are all significantly related to engagement in the DVHVI, with Hispanic women served by Hispanic advocate-officer teams more engaged in services than African American or Caucasian women. The data suggest that this intervention model may be particularly beneficial for Hispanic victims of intimate partner violence when implemented by a Spanish-speaking officer-advocate team.
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Violence against women · Oct 2008
Training adult protective services workers about domestic violence: training needs and strategies.
Many cases of elder abuse involve instances of partner abuse. In this study, attention is given to whether adult protective services supervisors think their workers know enough about specific aspects of domestic violence. ⋯ The supervisors rated the importance of understanding theoretical perspectives as low. Results also show that agencies with domestic violence training policies participate in domestic violence training programs more often.
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Violence against women · Sep 2008
Substance abuse issues among women in domestic violence programs: findings from North Carolina.
This article discusses the results of a survey of North Carolina domestic violence programs that found that substance abuse problems are common among program clients, yet only half of the programs had policies concerning substance-abusing clients, and one fourth had memoranda of agreement with substance abuse treatment providers. Most programs with shelters asked clients about substance use; however, one third of the shelters would not admit women if they were noticeably under the influence of substances while seeking shelter residence, instead referring them to substance abuse programs. Approximately one tenth of the domestic violence programs did not have any staff or volunteers with training in substance abuse issues. Implications are discussed.
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Participants (N = 126) read one of four scenarios depicting an incident of child physical abuse inflicted by the father. Scenarios varied history of wife abuse (present vs. absent) and severity of child abuse (battering vs. death). Overall, the father was held highly responsible. ⋯ The degree to which the mother should have been able to predict the incident of child abuse and maternal responsibility were mitigated when the abuse resulted in the death of her child. Perceptions of maternal psychological stability were jeopardized as a function of the presence of wife abuse. Implications are discussed.