142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

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Thriving in Abusive Homes: The Case of Adolescent Girls from Disadvantaged Areas of Lebanon

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014

Rouham Yamout, MD, MPH , Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
Zeina Ghantous, MPH , Mental Health, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Beirut, Lebanon
Lara Jirmanus, MD , Connor's Center for Global Women's Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA
Introduction: The social norms prevalent in Lebanon still accept abusive parenting, especially towards young girls. This study used data generated through evaluation of an alternative education program conducted in 2005-2008 among adolescents belonging to the lowest socio-economic stratus n Lebanon.

Objectives: This study used quantitative method (N= 448) to compare  the prevalence of exposure to domestic violence across genders and age-groups and to examine the association between exposure to abusive parenting and mental wellbeing. In addition this study used a qualitative method (N=19) to explore ways of coping domestic violence through the narratives of the most resilient group.

Results: Exposure to abusive treatment at home was reported among 41% of participants, significantly more among girls versus boys (49.36% versus 32.99%; p-value=0.002) and more among younger versus older adolescents (50.33% versus 32.82%, p-value=0.001). The association between exposure to domestic violence and mental health outcome was the strongest among younger boys (OR, 6.51), followed by older boys (OR, 2.86) and remained insignificant among girls. The qualitative analysis showed that acceptance and idealization were at the basis of the relative resilience of girls. 

Discussion: The traumatic effect of abusive parenting was significantly less pronounced in girls as compared to boys. The protective effect of female gender may be a result of overriding social ideology, which provided girls with a social-ideological framework that helped them in rationalizing their suffering and minimizong their feelings of victimization. Those findings can be useful for optimising the design of psychosocial interventions tackling adolescents especially in contexts where parental authority is the educational norm and where male dominence is still prevalent.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Diversity and culture
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe the association between exposure to abusive parenting and mental wellbeing among adolescents belonging to the lowest income stratus in Lebanon. Compare the exposure to domestic violence and its traumatic effect between girls and boys and across age groups. Assess ways of coping used by the adolescent girls to face domestic violence. Discuss the implication of findings on conceptualization of social interventions tackling particular social practices.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, Domestic Violence

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a Global Women's Health Fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and have taught a Global Health and Social Medicine Course at the American University of Beirut, and taught family medicine residents caring for Syrian refugee and Lebanese survivors of domestic violence in primary care settings in Lebanon. I helped to edit a training manual entitled, "Communicating with Violence Survivors," designed as a tool for physicians caring for victims of domestic violence in Lebanon.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.