Violence between partners is a major health problem and a significant cause of injury and death to women. The purpose of this research is to investigate the context, occurrence, and predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in battered women in three situational contexts: shelters, community, post-abuse for two or more years, and a comparison of never abused women. The Roy Adaptation Model and the theoretical framework of PTSD will be linked to guide this research. Between methods triangulation is used with a purposive sample of 176 African-American and Anglo-American women. Each participant in the quantitative component will be asked to complete six self-report instruments. The data will be analyzed descriptively and zero order correlations will be used to establish basic relationships. Multiple regression analysis will be used to establish the combination of variables that provide the most explained variance in relation to PTSD in battered women.
Aims of the focus group interview are to: a) identify aspects of battering considered to be traumatic, b) determine whether responses to violence changes over time, and c) identify cultural differences in responses to trauma. The qualitative data will be analyzed using thematic analysis. This research is an essential step for developing intervention programs with battered women and for continued model development and refinement.
