Enabling factors that facilitate recovery among survivors of gender-based violence

Abstract

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Gender-based violence (GBV) has long-term devastating effects on psychological health, resulting in depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder. Beyond physical and mental health symptoms, GBV can affect survivors on many personal, social, and spiritual levels, impacting their ability to connect to themselves, others, and the world around them. While most research on recovery following GBV has focused on recognizing factors associated with distress or adverse outcomes, there is limited information about how they recover. WHAT THE PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: We know little about the internal characteristics that enable or support the healing journey (factors) or what the survivors do to build capacity or support for health and change (strategies). Therefore, this study discovered the main factors or strategies that GBV survivors used throughout their recovery process which included; social connection, self-care, self-understanding and spiritual connection. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: Mental health nurses always encounter and deal with the GBV survivors as they always suffer from mental health issues related to their trauma. Therefore, mental health nurses can utilize our research findings to establish nursing interventions or psychoeducational programs with the aim of facilitating trauma recovery among the survivors.

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Gender-based violence (GBV) is a severe worldwide phenomenon mainly affecting women. Little studies focus on the details of the recovery process that survivors of GBV go through.

Aim: To identify the enabling factors that facilitate recovery among survivors of GBV.

Method: We used the thematic qualitative analysis approach to analyse 20 interviews with the women survivors of GBV.

Results: Our study resulted in four factors that survivors used in their recovery process (social connection, self-care, self-understanding and spiritual connection).

Discussion: Recovering from an abusive relationship is a social, spiritual, cultural and psychological process. Current study confirmed the positive impact of our identified enabling factors in the recovery process of GBV survivors.

Implications for practice: The current study illustrates findings that provide a deeper understanding of the journey to recovery following GBV, which can be helpful when guiding and supporting women who have suffered GBV to start and pursue their journey toward recovery.

Keywords: enabling factors; gender‐based violence; trauma recovery.