Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common problem that affects millions of people across the globe. It includes abuse and aggressive behaviors in romantic or family relationships. About 30% of women report domestic violence as physical or sexual violence, stalking, isolation, economic coercion, or psychological aggression regardless of their race, class, religion, and age (Akbari et al., 2021). In most cases, IPV is associated with depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders that challenge the individual’s well-being and socialization skills (Chandan et al., 2020). The effects of physical violence on human emotions and behaviors have been thoroughly studied and examined in many countries (Dokkedahl et al., 2019; Glowacz, Dziewa, and Schits, 2022). However, not much attention has been paid to the national context and the interventions offered in various countries. Thus, the research question of a future dissertation project will be “Are there any similarities and differences between mental health problems caused by domestic violence experienced by American and British women?”.
Literature Review
Every year, specific organizations and communities address the problem of domestic violence and the inability to predict it because of multiple personal and social factors. In the United Kingdom, the number of abuse-related crimes has increased by 6% during the last several months, or 845,734 cases in March 2021 (Elkin, 2021). In the United States, about 11 million women officially report domestic violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). The World Health Organisation (as cited in Sacco et al., 2020) identifies several types of violence: physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and stalking. Thus, one of the aspects of domestic violence discussion is the necessity to recognize the types of domestic abuse that could challenge the population.
People and help vary depending on situations and participants of domestic violence. Although anyone can be a victim of abuse, women and children are at higher risk (Carlson et al., 2020; Sacco et al., 2020). Certain interventions and protocols are created to protect women and other populations, understand the nature of domestic violence, and predict the growth of abusive behaviors in families (Ogbe et al., 2020; Sohal et al., 2018). Even if people can survive a particular case of violence, mental health problems do not disappear but continue to decrease life quality. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, are substance abuse are commonly reported diagnoses in victims (Dokkedahl et al., 2019; Glowacz, Dziewa, and Schits, 2022; Ogbe et al., 2020). It is not easy for individuals to deal with such challenges and return to a normal lifestyle, and additional help and protection might be required.
Conclusion
It is usually impossible to conduct original research and communicate with real people to answer the chosen research goal. Thus, a comparison of domestic violence between countries will be based on a systematic review. This explicit method is characterized by thoroughness and clarity in formulating questions and analyzing the existing literature. It is planned to use several bibliographic databases, including Medline, CINAHL, EBSCO, and Psychinfo. The inclusion criteria are full articles written in English and published within the last ten years. The participants should be females who survived partner abuse, reported a crime, and obtained professional help. The exclusion criteria are systematic reviews, dissertations, non-English papers, and abstracts. The major keywords to work with include “domestic violence,” “partner violence,” “physical/sexual abuse,” “stalking,” “mental health,” “depression,” “anxiety,” “United Kingdom,” and “United States.” The major expectations are to find at least ten articles to analyze UK and US domestic abuse cases equally.
Reference List
Akbari, A.R. et al. (2021) ‘The identification and referral to improve safety programme and the prevention of intimate partner violence’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(11). doi: 10.3390/ijerph18115653
Carlson, C. et al. (2020) ‘Violence against children and intimate partner violence against women: overlap and common contributing factors among caregiver-adolescent dyads’, BMC Public Health, 20(1). doi: 10.1186/s12889-019-8115-0
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) Fast facts: preventing intimate partner violence. Web.
Chandan, J.S. et al. (2020) ‘Female survivors of intimate partner violence and risk of depression, anxiety and serious mental illness’, The British Journal of Psychiatry, 217(4), pp. 562-567.
Dokkedahl, S. et al. (2019) ‘The psychological subtype of intimate partner violence and its effect on mental health: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis’, Systematic Reviews, 8(1). doi: 10.1186/s13643-019-1118-1
Glowacz, F., Dziewa, A. and Schmits, E. (2022) ‘Intimate partner violence and mental health during lockdown of the CoViD-19 pandemic’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(5). doi: 10.3390/ijerph19052535
Elkin, M. (2021) Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2021. Web.
Ogbe, E. et al. (2020) ‘A systematic review of intimate partner violence interventions focused on improving social support and/mental health outcomes of survivors’, PLoS One, 15(6). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235177
Sacco, M.A. et al. (2020) ‘The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on domestic violence: the dark side of home isolation during quarantine’, Medico-Legal Journal, 88(2), 71-73.
Sohal, A.H. et al. (2018) ‘Improving the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse in primary care: protocol for a mixed method evaluation of the implementation of a complex intervention’, BMC Public Health, 18(1), 1-7. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5865-z