Confronting Violence

An Investigation of the Relationships Among Locus of Control, Self-Concept, Duration of the Intimate Relationship, and Severity of Physical and Nonphysical Abuse of Battered Women, 1985

In an effort to understand the how's and why's of intimate partner violence, for her nursing dissertation, Virginia Drake investigated abusive relationships while considering three factors: the individual partners' perceptions of their own power or helplessness, relationship length, and abuse severity. She asked, "What significant differences exist between battered women based on demographic variables? What significant differences exist between sheltered and non-sheltered battered women?" She concluded that nurses were in a particularly advantageous position to respond to the health care needs of women who were battered.

Courtesy National Library of Medicine