Intimate Partner Abuse: What are the impacts on women mental health well being in the UK

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Contents

Background1

Problem Statement1

Purpose of Research2

Research Aims and Objectives2

Research Questions3

Literature Review3

Psychological Abuse by Intimate Partners3

Sexual Abuse by Intimate Partners4

Stalking4

Mental Health Consequences of Intimate Partner Abuse4

Methodology5

Research Approach5

Research Instrument6

Sampling6

References7

Background

Intimate Partner abuse represents an international public health issue. The intimate partner abuse can result in long-term and short-term mental health problems in women. Intimate partner abuse has been associated with a rise of psychoactive use of substance, depression, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicide, depression and anxiety. On the other hand, and despite the plentiful literature on the effects of partner abuse on mental health of women; several parts are still not clear.

Eventually, intimate partner abuse has been studied in several developing and developed countries. UK remains one of the few large civilisations for which the correlates and prevalence of intimate partner abuse are still not known. Regardless of the fact that it has become a main concern in the political agenda of UK. Several women were killed by their intimate partners in the last year (Arias, 1999). The research adds to the present literature by offering information on the magnitude of intimate partner violence in UK, by explaining the separate effects of sexual, psychological and physical intimate partner violence on mental health, in a sample of women from UK. In addition to this, it examines whether the rise in duration and intensity of intimate partner abuse is associated with an increased probability of poor mental health. Lastly, the research determines if the consequences of intimate partner abuse on mental health can be permanent by making a distinction between women not reporting past abuse, however the current abuse.

Problem Statement

Most of the previous researches have only considered sexual and physical intimate partner abuse, mainly as these are the most noticeable and easy to find the forms of intimate partner violence. On the other hand, psychological abuse is the major reported factor for intimate partner abuse, and it has been determined to affect the mental health of women as significantly and greatly as other forms of abuse. On more aspect that has really been noticed is whether various forms of abuse have different effects on mental health of women. For instance, literature shows that sexual abuse by an intimate partner can explain the higher occurrence of gynaecological issues reported by abused women. However, when it comes to mental health of women, this problem has hardly been focused.

Purpose of Research

The purpose of this research is to assess the exceptional contributions of sexual, physical and psychological abuse by intimate partner on mental health of women. The research will use the survey of different women in order to assess the effect of intimate partner abuse. For this purpose, the research will conduct a multidimensional review of several types of partner abuse, particularly testing the impact of unstudied types of partner abuse and their effect on mental health of women. These types of intimate partner abuse can include stalking and psychological abuse, ...