[PDF] The association of physical and mental health of middle-aged women with the occurrence of physical, psychological, sexual and combinational abuse(s) Jeremy Craig Cottle

This study investigated the association of physical and mental health with the incidence of various forms of abuse in middle-aged women, addressing a gap in the literature regarding the study of abuse in this population. The Domestic Violence Screening Questionnaire (DVSQ) was used to measure abuse and assess its effect on the outcomes of physical and mental health, measured by the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36). It was hypothesized that women, age 45 to 60 years old, who experience recent abuse(s) would report lower physical and mental health scores on the SF-36 than women who had not reported recent abuse(s).

Data for this study were taken from a sample of 177 women who participated in a non-randomized, descriptive research design conducted at the University Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas by Robert Brzyski, M.D., Ph.D. Of those women surveyed, 66 respondents (or 37 percent) reported some form of psychological, sexual, physical, or a combination of these abuses, while 111 (or 63 percent) participants reported no abuse. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regressions were performed to test whether those who reported abuse had lower physical and mental health scores than those who did not report abuse. No significant associations were found between abuse and physical health; however, reports of abuse, especially psychological and combinational forms, were negatively associated with mental health. Additionally, hierarchical regressions were performed to investigate if reports of abuse would predict health scores above and beyond other proximal predictors of abuse. Results from these analyses mirrored those from the ANOVAs, suggesting that psychological and combinational forms of abuse may be particularly damaging to mental health. Implications for these relationships were drawn suggesting that professionals should be aware of the potential impact that abuse may have on the overall health of the people they help.