Psychological stress, cognitive appraisals, coping strategies and emotional states of abused Chinese women

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex phenomenon of abusive partners’ behavior and is a serious public health problem that affects women’s health. It includes physical assaults, psychological aggressions, sexual abuse, and controlling behavior. Over the years, IPV was thought to be associated with chronic psychological stress. Although Chinese women have been shown using a variety of strategies to appraise, as well as cope with their abuse experience, not much is known about the relationships among psychological stress, appraisal of IPV as a stressor, coping strategies and emotional states in abused Chinese women.

This study aimed (a) to differentiate women’s cognitive appraisal of IPV as a “threat” or a “challenge”; (b) to examine the relationship among women’s cognitive appraisals, coping strategies and emotional states; (c) to investigate the effect of cognitive appraisal and coping strategies on the relationship between IPV severity and emotional states.

A cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted. A total of 200 abused and 100 non-abused community-dwelling Chinese women aged 18 or above were recruited via poster advertisements in community centers and domestic violence support agencies in Hong Kong for this study. Participants were interviewed using a questionnaire to elicit their violence experience, cognitive appraisal, coping strategies, psychosocial readiness, social stress, self-efficacy and emotional states.

Among the abused women group, 23.3% and 34.7% of them appraised IPV as a “threat” and “challenge” respectively, while 11.4% reported the co-existence of “threat” and “challenge” appraisal. Although abused women used a variety of coping strategies to cope with partner’ abusive behavior, however, their efforts were perceived as somewhat helpful. A proposed model, conceptualized from the transactional model of stress and coping, the stress process model and the psychosocial readiness model, was tested using structural equation modeling. It revealed that violence severity had a significant impact on women’s adaptational outcomes, i.e. emotional states in terms of psychological symptoms and distress intensity, and self-efficacy. This relationship was significantly mediated by cognitive appraisal and coping strategies. The psychosocial readiness of abused women was also found as a crucial mediator in the relationship of violence severity and coping strategies. Besides, a significant indirect effect of social stress on the relationship between IPV severity and adaptational outcomes was observed. Furthermore, financial difficulties had a significant effect on cognitive appraisal of abused women. It indicated that an increase in financial difficulties therefore increased the threat appraisal of abused women and in turns affecting their coping strategies and adaptational outcomes. However, immigration status had no effect on cognitive appraisal, psychosocial readiness, coping strategies social stress and outcomes among Chinese abused women.

This study identified the mediating effects of cognitive appraisal and coping strategies on abused women’s self-efficacy and emotional states. The findings of this study advanced the current knowledge of cognitive appraisal and coping in women survivors of IPV. Intervention focus on coping may be effective in buffering the violence-related psychological stress and, special attention shall be paid to the psychosocial readiness of abused Chinese women to facilitate the effectiveness of coping strategies.