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Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia

Intimate partner violence is a significant public health issues in Malaysia and evidently highlighted as a violation of women‟s human rights. It affects a large proportion of women in Malaysia. Women who have experienced intimate partner violence have consistently reported poor physical and mental h...

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Main Author: Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
BF Psychology
R Medicine
Online Access:http://eprints.usm.my/56388/1/Dr.%20Tengku%20Nur%20Fadzilah%20Bt%20Tengku%20Hassan-24%20pages.pdf
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spelling my.usm.eprints.56388 http://eprints.usm.my/56388/ Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah BF Psychology R Medicine Intimate partner violence is a significant public health issues in Malaysia and evidently highlighted as a violation of women‟s human rights. It affects a large proportion of women in Malaysia. Women who have experienced intimate partner violence have consistently reported poor physical and mental health consequences. Women experiencing intimate partner violence use various strategies to cope with violent relationships. This qualitative study aims to explore the lived experiences of women‟s coping with intimate partner violence through a feminist perspective and socio-ecological framework. Additionally, the study also wanted to examine factors motivating women‟s choices of coping as well as their perception on the effectiveness of their coping strategies. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 women survivors of intimate partner violence who had sought help from two women NGOs in Malaysia. The women were asked about their experiences of violence as well as their use of coping strategies and the effectiveness of the strategies. Using thematic analysis, five major themes on coping were identified; i) avoidance-denial, ii) self-strengthening, iii) resistance, iv) self-harm and v) help-seeking. Furthermore, the prominent factors to choices of coping in the data were presence of children and preserving the marriage relationship. Women felt that it is their duty to preserve the sanctity of marriage for the sake of their children. Additional factors include socio-economic status, types and severity of violence, duration of relationship/violence and availability of resources. Women reported that self-strengthening and help-seeking strategies were effectively helpful to them in addressing intimate partner violence. On the other hand, few women reported avoidance-denial and resistance strategies were only effective in certain circumstances. The findings from the study clearly show that women experiencing violence do cope with their abusive relationship in many ways according to their observation on the violent situation. Women‟s coping with intimate partner violence should be understood as a process. This study suggests the importance of intervention to women‟s readiness in response to violence. Given the fact that women always turn to informal resources for help, it is suggested that service providers work collaboratively with women NGOs to mobilize women‟s informal social network by creating more awareness campaign on intimate partner violence. Implications for future research are discussed. 2018-08 Thesis NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en http://eprints.usm.my/56388/1/Dr.%20Tengku%20Nur%20Fadzilah%20Bt%20Tengku%20Hassan-24%20pages.pdf Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah (2018) Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia. Masters thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
institution Universiti Sains Malaysia
building Hamzah Sendut Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Sains Malaysia
content_source USM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://eprints.usm.my/
language English
topic BF Psychology
R Medicine
spellingShingle BF Psychology
R Medicine
Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah
Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia
description Intimate partner violence is a significant public health issues in Malaysia and evidently highlighted as a violation of women‟s human rights. It affects a large proportion of women in Malaysia. Women who have experienced intimate partner violence have consistently reported poor physical and mental health consequences. Women experiencing intimate partner violence use various strategies to cope with violent relationships. This qualitative study aims to explore the lived experiences of women‟s coping with intimate partner violence through a feminist perspective and socio-ecological framework. Additionally, the study also wanted to examine factors motivating women‟s choices of coping as well as their perception on the effectiveness of their coping strategies. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 women survivors of intimate partner violence who had sought help from two women NGOs in Malaysia. The women were asked about their experiences of violence as well as their use of coping strategies and the effectiveness of the strategies. Using thematic analysis, five major themes on coping were identified; i) avoidance-denial, ii) self-strengthening, iii) resistance, iv) self-harm and v) help-seeking. Furthermore, the prominent factors to choices of coping in the data were presence of children and preserving the marriage relationship. Women felt that it is their duty to preserve the sanctity of marriage for the sake of their children. Additional factors include socio-economic status, types and severity of violence, duration of relationship/violence and availability of resources. Women reported that self-strengthening and help-seeking strategies were effectively helpful to them in addressing intimate partner violence. On the other hand, few women reported avoidance-denial and resistance strategies were only effective in certain circumstances. The findings from the study clearly show that women experiencing violence do cope with their abusive relationship in many ways according to their observation on the violent situation. Women‟s coping with intimate partner violence should be understood as a process. This study suggests the importance of intervention to women‟s readiness in response to violence. Given the fact that women always turn to informal resources for help, it is suggested that service providers work collaboratively with women NGOs to mobilize women‟s informal social network by creating more awareness campaign on intimate partner violence. Implications for future research are discussed.
format Thesis
author Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah
author_facet Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah
author_sort Tengku Hassan, Tengku Nur Fadzilah
title Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia
title_short Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia
title_full Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia
title_fullStr Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in Malaysia
title_sort coping strategies among women who experienced domestic violence in malaysia
publishDate 2018
url http://eprints.usm.my/56388/1/Dr.%20Tengku%20Nur%20Fadzilah%20Bt%20Tengku%20Hassan-24%20pages.pdf
http://eprints.usm.my/56388/
_version_ 1755873175996989440
score 13.211869

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