The purpose of the presentation is to inform participants about an innovative project at Brigham and Women’s Hospital which brought together an empowerment-based advocacy perspective, the experiences of battered women, and qualitative research methodology to formulate outcome measures for battered women’s programs. To understand whether interventions for domestic violence are successful, we must first understand the true impact of the problem on its victims. To date, literature on the subject has focused on a limited number of health and mental health effects. Through 30 qualitative interviews with a diverse group of battered women, the project gathered data on the broad range of effects of abuse on women’s health and well-being, including impact on emotional and physical health, parenting, social relationships, spirituality, body image, employment, and more. The presentation will provide an overview of the project goals and objectives, methodology, and findings. In addition, the presentation will describe how collaboration with battered women’s advocates was critical to every aspect of the project, including research design and development of data collection tools, participant recruitment, interviewer selection and approach, analysis, interpretation, and next steps. At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of the impact of domestic violence on women’s lives, understand the process for developing outcome measures, and know how to integrate and benefit from an advocacy perspective in research. Information shared in this presentation will benefit researchers as well as battered women’s program administrators.
Learning Objectives: Participants will have a comprehensive understanding of the impact of domestic violence on women’s lives, understand the process for developing outcome measures, and know how to integrate and benefit from an advocacy perspective in research
Keywords: Domestic Violence, Evaluation
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.