Wife abuse and its psychological consequences as revealed by the first Palestinian National Survey on Violence Against Women.

Abstract

The article focuses on the incidence of wife abuse and battering and some of its psychological consequences, as revealed in the First Palestinian National Survey, which was conducted with a national systematic random sample of 2,410 women from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The findings indicate that the Palestinian women had experienced high levels of psychological abuse, physical violence, sexual abuse, and economic abuse during the 12 months preceding the study. In addition, analysis of variance revealed that women who had experienced those patterns of abuse expressed higher levels of psychological distress, anger, and fear than did nonabused women. Furthermore, regression and multiple regression analysis revealed that significant amounts of the variance in women's psychological distress, anger, and fear are explained by their experiences with abuse and battering as well as by some of their sociodemographic characteristics. Extensive research on domestic violence conducted since the 1970s has provided considerable empirical evidence to debunk the myth that wife abuse and battering affect only a small percentage of women. These studies also have shown that women's experiences with different patterns of abuse and battering have devastating mental health consequences. Unfortunately, however, there is a serious dearth of similar research focusing on Arab societies. Heise, Pitanguy, and Germain's (1994) review of 35 studies from countries throughout the world indicated that in many countries the The study was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation and conducted in full collaboration with the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority. The author and the Bisan Center express their sincere gratitude to Jocelyn DeJong at the Ford Foundation offices in Cairo, Egypt, for her generous support and cooperation in conducting this study, as well as other research projects on domestic violence in Palestinian society. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Electronic mail may be sent to mshajyah@plut o. mscc.huji.ac.il. proportion of women who report physical abuse by a present or former partner ranges from one fourth to more than one half. Their review also revealed that an even larger percentage of women have experienced ongoing emotional and psychological abuse, which many of them consider to be worse than physical violence. Although studies on the annual incidence of violence (i.e., experienced at least once during the year of the survey) conducted in several countries have revealed lower rates of violence against women, they also indicate that the problem continues to be widespread. For