The voices that should be heard: A qualitative and content analysis to explore resilience and psychological health in victims of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW)

Abstract

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) implicates various psychological health problems in women who suffer from it, often associated with the consumption of drugs. To date, studies mainly focus on quantitate data about psychopathological disorders. However, there are factors (i.e. resilience) preventing women from suffering and also helping to overcome certain psychological alterations and trauma. To analyze how resilient (or not) women face this gender violence situation and how their past events influence their current situation, 60 women from Spain (mean age = 37.03; SD = 10.02; range = 21–61) were in-depth interviewed following the life stories method. Furthermore, once the interviews were processed, we content analyzed data to categorize responses into high and low resilience. Thus, we could analyze the relationship among variables. In particular, women with a higher level of resilience show a less development of psychopathologies and drug consumption. As a result resilience proves to be a key aspect to improve and promote the reduction of mental health problems in victims of gender violence.