The women's mental health research agenda. Violence against women

Abstract

The focus of this article is violence against women: scope, impact, community response, clinical treatment, and prevention. Conclusions include the following: (a) Nationally representative data on the scope of violence are lacking. (b) The mental health implications of violence are not currently addressed by the practices of mental health professionals. (c) Discontinuity exists between clinical understanding of the impact of violence and empirical treatment research. (d) Victim services are proceeding in program development without direction from empirical data. (e) Prevention efforts have been isolated from the social context in which violence against women occurs. Nine directions for future research are highlighted that intersect with the stated priorities of the National Institute of Mental Health.

PIP: This article explores the scope, impact, community response, prevention, and treatment of violence against women. For the past several years, 38% to 67% of adult women experienced violence before reaching the age of 18. Despite the different violent events which women experienced, its impact on the mental health status of women remained similar. Victims of violence develop an immediate "postvictimization distress response" characterized by fear and avoidance, constriction of affect, self-concept and self-efficacy disturbances, and sexual dysfunction. Moreover, the traumatic experience affects their belief in personal vulnerability and perceptions on the meaning of the world. Several conclusions were drawn from the information presented and included the following: 1) there is lack of nationally representative data to determine the scope of violence; 2) mental health professionals are not addressing the mental health implications of violence; 3) programs directed towards the victims of violence were developed without basing on empirical data; and 4) efforts to prevent violence against women were isolated from the social context. Finally, a research agenda which contains directions for future research were presented to address the gaps in existing literature that were previously identified.