Paper
Saturday, 22 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Stress and Healthcare Needs of Women
Health Status, Health Services Utilization and Healthcare Needs of Battered Immigrant Women
Ursula Kelly, PhD, APRN, BC, Graduate Program in Nursing, MGH Institute of Health Professions, Charlestown, MA, USA
Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to identify the most significant health problems experienced by battered immigrant women and the women's patterns of health-services utilization.
Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to identify the relationships between health status and women’s appraisals of their abuse, their ethnicity, language, and immigration status.
This cross-sectional descriptive study examined the health status, health-services utilization, and health care needs of battered immigrant women, as well as the relationships between these variables and the women’s experiences of and appraisals of their intimate partner abuse (IPA), ethnicity, language, and immigration status. The association between intimate partner abuse and a multitude of physical and psychological health problems is well documented in the research literature. However, most studies examined IPA in primarily Caucasian and African-American women who were non-immigrants.

Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions:

1.      What is the health status of immigrant women who are accessing residential and non-residential battered women’s services?

2.      What are the health-services utilization and health care needs of immigrant women who are accessing residential and non-residential battered women’s services?

3.      Are there significant differences in the health status, health-services utilization and health care needs of women who experience IPA based on their abuse severity, their self-appraisals of the abuse, and ethnicity, language, and immigration status?A convenience sample of primarily non-English speaking immigrant women was recruited from an urban battered women’s services agency. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. In addition to demographic data, data collection instruments included items from the National Health Interview Survey and the CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, as well as full versions of the Severity of Violence Against Women Scale (Marshall, 1992) and the Appraisal of Violent Situations (Dutton, 1992). The qualitative interview data pertained to women’s descriptions of their past and current health care needs.
The findings of this study will be presented, with implications for clinical practice, health policy, and future research discussed.

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