Interventions to Improve Abused Womens Self Efficacy

Limandri, Barbara

Abstract

The long term goal of this study is to test the feasibility of a treatment strategy that helps abused women develop self-efficacy. Domestic violence has serious health consequences including disabling physical injuries, psychological distress and disorders that interferes with occupational and social functioning, and, at the extreme, death. Nurses are in gate keeper roles to prevent, assess, and intervene in domestic violence, although there is inadequate research on effective treatment approaches.
The specific aims of the study are to 1) compare the self-efficacy of abused women in the experimental group with the self-efficacy of those in the control group; 2) explore the relationship among abusive behavior, perceived and conflicted social support, ways of coping and self-efficacy; 3) examine men's and women's perceptions of changes in abuse behavior following parallel treatment programs; and 4) refine the Self-Efficacy Scale for Battered Women-Revised (SESFBW-rev) form to establish further evidence of reliability and validity. To achieve these aims the proposed study will use a two-group, experimental, pre-post-test design. Participants (abused women) in the intervention group will attend a 12 week psychoeducational group specifically designed to increase their self-efficacy, social support and coping and to accurately decrease the perception of dangerousness and violence. Abused women in the control group will receive standard community treatment. The study will take place in a mid sized city in the Pacific Northwest. The sample of 100 (50 control, 50 intervention) will be referred by the county Domestic Violence Sentence Deferment Program (DVSDP) of the Probation Department. The researchers who have been specially trained in working with abused women and the Insight Group (R), will work with the abused women. Data will be collected before and after the intervention using instruments of established and acceptable psychometric properties. Analysis will consist of quantitative and qualitative data analysis specific to each aim and hypothesis. The results of the study will be used to develop a larger scale study that will focus on outcomes variables.